timburks / nu

INTRODUCTION

Hello and welcome to Nu.

I created Nu because I wanted a better way to write software.

I wanted to write with a language as flexible and powerful as Lisp, but I 
also wanted to be able to work with the many libraries and high-performance
subsystems written in C, including the ones that I write myself.  So a tight 
integration with C was my highest priority; that ruled and drove the 
implementation of Nu.  That's why Nu is "C over lambda."

It is easier to integrate with C when you have a disciplined way of structuring 
C code.  Popular scripting languages (Python, Ruby, Lua, etc.) make many 
implementation-dependent impositions on the C code that they call.  Their
artifacts are often called "glue code" and are usually ugly, cumbersome, and 
unpleasant to generate.

Objective-C provides a proven way of structuring C code that has no scripting 
language implementation dependencies.  But it can do much more than that.
Objective-C can also serve as a platform for a powerful dynamic language.  
Nu was designed to take full advantage of that.  It was also designed to 
provide many of the elements of successful scripting languages, notably 
Ruby, while adding the syntactic simplicity and flexibility of Lisp.   

LEGAL

Nu is copyrighted open-source software that is released under the Apache
License, version 2.0.  For details on the license, see the LICENSE file.
In its use to name a programming language, "Nu" is a trademark of Neon Design 
Technology, Inc.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

On Macintosh systems, Nu requires Mac OS X version 10.5 or greater.
It is also possible to build Nu to run on Linux systems and the 
Apple iPhone.

INSTALLATION

Installation instructions are in the notes/INSTALL file.

GOING FURTHER

notes/DEMO contains a simple tutorial exercise that can acquaint you with Nu.

notes/USAGE describes a few of the ways that you can use Nu.

notes/ERRORS contains some pitfalls that I've encountered when programming 
with Nu.

notes/TODO contains some open issues that I'd like to address in Nu.

The examples directory contains several fun and interesting examples.

TextMate users can drag and drop share/Nu.tmbundle onto the TextMate 
application icon to add Nu-specific features to TextMate.

AUTHOR

Tim Burks (tim@neontology.com)
Neon Design Technology, Inc.
Los Altos, California, USA
http://www.neontology.com