Calls and phrases

Romit expresses calls and control flow as space-separated words instead of punctuation-heavy syntax.

Calls and assignments

Print from a script or rule with say (shortest) or print (alias — same behavior, familiar from Python/Lua):

say "Hello, world!"
print "Hello, world!"

In a script (no spec header), assign locals and print them:

set total to 3 times 4 plus 2
say "Total: " total
set x to x plus 1

Space-separated values after say are printed next to each other with no extra separators — useful for labels like say "Total: " total.

At the start of a script line, assign with name = value (short form) or set name to value (readable form). Both are equivalent; x=5 and x = 5 both work.

Inside a condition or expression, lone = is still an error — use is, is not, or == for comparison.

Emit events and pass fields with phrases in the spec layer:

emit Greet with message "Hi"
set answer to 3 times 4 plus 2
send Compute with n 10

Comparisons and arithmetic can use words (is, is not, times, plus) or the allowed symbols (+, -, *, /, ==, !=).

Event headers and parameters

Handlers name their event and parameters in the same phrase style:

on Compute with n if n is 10
on Add with title
on Tick if light is red

Types and access

Types read as phrases: List of Number, items at 0, task_text is not "".

Navigation and UI (planned)

Planned UI examples use navigation phrases such as go to /signup and on click go to … instead of arrows or braces. See UI framework and Planned UI syntax.