Nu (programming language)

Nu is an interpreted object-oriented programming language, with a Lisp-like syntax, created by Tim Burks as an alternative scripting language to program OS X through its Cocoa application programming interface (API). Implementations also exist for iPhone and Linux.

The language was first announced at C4,^[1] a conference for indie Mac developers held in August 2007.

This Nu code defines a simple complex numbers class.

(classComplexisNSObject
(ivar(double)real
(double)imaginary)
(-initWithReal:(double)ximaginary:(double)yis
(superinit)
(set@realx)
(set@imaginaryy)
self))

The example is a basic definition of a complex number: it defines the instance variables, and a method to initialize the object. It shows the similarity between the code in Nu and the equivalent in Objective-C; it also shows the similarity with Ruby.

(unless@prefix
(set@prefix
"#{((((NSProcessInfo processInfo) arguments) 0) dirName)}.."))
(unless@icon_files
(set@icon_files
(array"#{@prefix}/share/nu/resources/nu.icns")))

This sample, from the nuke tool bundled with Nu, also shows the influence of Objective-C, Lisp, and Ruby in the design of the language.

• F-Script
• MacRuby
• RubyCocoa

• Official website
• Nu - Git repository on GitHub