Cobra (programming language)

Cobra

Paradigm	Multi-paradigm: object-oriented
Designed by	Charles Esterbrook
Developer	Cobra Language LLC
First appeared	2006
Stable release	0.9.6 / December 23, 2013
Typing discipline	strong, static, dynamic, inferred
OS	Microsoft .NET, Mono
License	MIT
Filename extensions	.cobra
Website	cobra-language.com
Influenced by
Python, Eiffel, C#, Objective-C

Cobra is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language.^[1] Cobra is designed by Charles Esterbrook, and runs on the Microsoft .NET and Mono platforms.^[2] It is strongly influenced by Python, C#, Eiffel, Objective-C, and other programming languages.^[3] It supports both static and dynamic typing.^[4][5] It has support for unit tests and contracts.^[4] It has lambda expressions, closures, list comprehensions, and generators.^[6]

Cobra is an open-source project; it was released under the MIT License on February 29, 2008.^[7][8]

Updates are posted to the Cobra news forum with progress on features, fixes, documentation and related projects since the last update.^[9]

Features

Object-oriented

• Namespaces
• Classes, interfaces, structs, extensions, enumerations
• Methods, properties, indexers
• Mixins, extension methods
• Generics, attributes

Quality control

• Contracts, assertions
• Unit tests, docstrings
• Compile-time nil-tracking

Expressiveness

• Static and dynamic binding
• List, dictionary, and set literals
• in and implies operator
• for expressions
• Slicing
• Interpolated strings
• Compile-time type inference
• Lambdas and closures

General productivity

• Exception handling
• Postmortem exception report
• Garbage collection

Scripting conveniences

• Clean syntax
• Dynamic binding
• One-step run
• Shebang line (#!)

Miscellaneous

• Documentation tool (cobra -doc)
• Syntax highlighting tool (cobra -highlight)

Examples

The following examples can be run from a file using cobra <filename>.

Hello World

class Hello
    def main
        print 'hello'

A simple class

class Person

    var _name as String
    var _age as int

    cue init(name as String, age as int)
        _name, _age = name, age

    def toString as String is override
        return 'My name is [_name] and I am [_age] years old'

References

1. "The Cobra Programming Language". Cobra Language LLC. Retrieved 2012-09-26.
2. Charles Esterbrook (Jan 28, 2008). Lang.NET Symposium 2008 – The Cobra Programming Language (wmv). Microsoft. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
3. Bridgwater, Adrian (5 March 2008). "Cobra takes a bite at open source". ZDNet UK. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
4. Neward, Ted (June 2009). "Reaping the Benefits of Cobra". MSDN Magazine.
5. Erickson, Jonathan (April 2008). "Was George Costanza a Computer Programmer?". Dr. Dobb's Journal.
6. Morris, Richard (April 2010). "Chuck Esterbrook: Geek of the Week". simple-talk.
7. Krill, Paul (Feb 7, 2008). "Cobra language slithering to open source". InfoWorld. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
8. "The Cobra Programming Language". Cobra Language LLC. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
9. Cobra News Forum

External links

• Official website
• The Cobra blog by Charles Esterbrook
• Cobra News Index