An idea that's out of my reach of knowledge

[Akkernight]

I didn't know in what forum to place this, so I choose this one...

Well, an idea stroke my mind. An idea for a language, since I've seen people making nw 'languages' on here, and I thought this would be a nice idea. But this is only a small fragment of an idea for a whole language tho...

So, is it possible to make a language that defines variables in such a manner

var# NumericVariable = 5;
var StringVariable = "Some text";
var CharVariable = 'v';

I've never seen # being used before, but my knowledge of programming isn't wise eather :S
So this can be done? For me it looks kinda easy and obvious for a programming language, and might indeed be a nice idea for someone who want's to make one...

[laserlight]

I didn't know in what forum to place this, so I choose this one...

Moved to the tech board. I suppose general discussions would have been good too.

So, is it possible to make a language that defines variables in such a manner

What manner is that, exactly?

I've never seen # being used before, but my knowledge of programming isn't wise eather

Given that you already know C and C++, I believe you have seen # being used for preprocessor macros. Some languages use it as a comment marker.

So this can be done?

I would guess a "yes", but frankly, I do not know what is "this". If you are asking if it is possible for your code snippet to be a code snippet of a programming language, then yes, of course.

[vart]

seems to me like some Basic dialect or even BasicScript

[michaelp]

Turing???
Go to the keyword var,(using the scrolling thing on the side) and it shows you can declare a string variable like this:

var StringVar := "string"

The language is kind of dead though, and is only taught in Canadian High schools I think.

[Akkernight]

woops! xD
I'm ashamed now, I know the # being used :S
Well, still it seems as a good idea?
And I'm not looking for such a language

[whiteflags]

> Well, still it seems as a good idea?
To be honest, it seems half-baked, like you don't know what this language is good at doing.

Syntax is largely up to the author most of the time (the example where it's usually not being stack based languages like chef or brain..........).

I don't think anyone's opinion matters right now, until you know what this is.

[iMalc]

Change 'var' to 'auto' and get rid of the hash and you've got one of the proposed C++0x features. Nothing new here.

[sean]

So, is it possible to make a language that defines variables in such a manner

As long as you can define it and write a compiler for it, sure. I would recommend you think it out more though - someone mentioned the idea of a language being good at something.

For instance - Java tried to be really good at the whole Object-Oriented and platform-independent thing. Ruby does a really good job of being simple, easy, and quick. What do you want your language to do, exactly? How could you write a syntax that lends itself to that task?

[Akkernight]

I don't want to make a language, I just wanted to share the idea incase someone else wanted to So in basics the idea is to make # assign a numeric 'value' or so... Like if you make a function, it can return numeric or characteristic (?)... Dunno how to explain nicely xP
Variables and other stuff that don't have # are characteristic(?), those with # are numeric, just like in any other typing... #1 = Number One and 1 = One.

var# NumericVar = 5;
var# CharacteristicVar1 = "Hello", CharacteristicVar2 = 'c';

var# NumericFunc(); //returns numeric value
var CharacteristicFunc(); //returns characteristic value

vector<var#> num_vec; //vector to hold numeric values
vector<var> char_vec; //vector to hold characteristic values

And so on...
Still not a good idea?

[laserlight]

So in basics the idea is to make # assign a numeric 'value' or so... Like if you make a function, it can return numeric or characteristic (?)... Dunno how to explain nicely xP
Variables and other stuff that don't have # are characteristic(?), those with # are numeric, just like in any other typing... #1 = Number One and 1 = One.

By "characteristic" you mean "pertaining to characters and strings"? If so, then it sounds like you are thinking of a programming language where there are two broad classes of types: numbers and characters/strings, and types default to the latter. The use of # to denote numeric types is just syntax, and while I would be fine with it, it does not particularly excite me.

[sean]

It seems a tad backwards to me - because numerical data is more natural to the computer. In BASIC, the $ symbol is used to denote strings the same way you're using the # for numbers. Combining the two would make it look less confusing I think. var$ means a string and var # means a number. I agree with laserlight - you could make it work, but I don't think much would be gained from it.

[Akkernight]

meh, it just came to mind and I decided to share it
I wouldn't use it even tho someone made it, or maybe since it was my idea and I wanted to see the result, but I'm gonna stay with C++! xP

[nonoob]

sean's comparison with BASIC's string variable suffix '$' is quite apt. The '#' would be similar... But why have suffixes at all? Some languages don't have any differentiation between variable names whether they store strings or numeric arrays. C for example. But the keywords 'char' or 'int' told the compiler what's what up front. Other languages are even more dynamic - where the variables could change their types on-the-fly.