Idio

Idio is a programming language for orchestrating commands like a shell. It is asking the question, can we write better shell scripts by integrating shell-like constructions into a programming language?

The motivation behind Idio is to be able to write shell scripts and to not have to change languages to perform some, ostensibly, simple task. Other languages which are not predicated on orchestrating commands. Do we go all-in with the other language and lose the shell’s expressibility, do we fight with quoting to get results back? It doesn’t seem right.

We should be able to manage complex data structures, we should be able to interact with terminal based programs whose prompts are context-dependent, we should be able to invoke functionality in shared libraries.

Idio is a programming language first and foremost, though, so not all traditional shell command syntax translates directly.

Careful, now! Idio is new and hasn’t seen enough of the world to avoid what are relatively obvious faults and omissions. It is also far from ready for prime-time. Please take that into consideration.

That’s not to say it isn’t functional, after all it uses thousands of lines of Idio-script to create its own source code.

It is very much a work in progress.

To get started, please read Getting Idio.

For further information you can read the Idio User Guide and the Idio Language Reference.

The Roadmap lists some fanciful ideas for the way forward.

For those interested in the Design and Implementation of Idio, please read DIPS which is a lengthy treatise on the hows and whys and wherefores.