Layman - Fully Deterministic English for Computation

Core Philosophy

Layman programs are written in pure English prose. Every valid program reads like natural text, yet compiles to deterministic, efficient code. There are no special characters—only words, spaces, and standard punctuation.

Variables and Assignment

Variables are declared and assigned using natural English. Type annotations are optional—Layman can infer types from values.

# Simple assignment with type inference
name is 'Layman'
count is 10
is_active is true

# Explicit type annotation
age of type Number is 25
message of type String is 'Hello'

# Multi-word variable names
user name is 'Alice'
total count is 100

# The 'is' keyword is context-aware
# In assignment: assigns value
# In comparison: checks equality
# In object creation: creates new instance

Types

Primitive Types

Number - integers and floating-point numbers
String - text strings (also accepts Text)
Bool - boolean values (also accepts Boolean)
Void - no value (also accepts Nothing)

# Type annotations
count of type Number is 5
name of type String is 'Alice'
is_active of type Bool is true

# Optional types with 'maybe'
optional_count of type maybe Number is nothing
optional_count of type maybe Number is 10

Functions

Functions are defined using natural English phrases. Parameters and return types are clearly specified.

# Function definition
define function greet that takes name as String and returns Void
  greeting is 'Hello, ' plus name
  print greeting

# Function with multiple parameters
define function add that takes first as Number and second as Number and returns Number
  return first plus second

# Function call
call function greet with argument 'World'
result is call function add with argument 5 and argument 3

# Lambda functions (anonymous functions)
double is function of x returning x times 2

Control Flow

Conditional Statements

temperature is 75

if temperature is greater than 70 then
  print "it is warm outside"
else if temperature is greater than 50 then
  print "it is moderate"
else
  print "it is cool outside"
end if

# 'otherwise if' is also supported
if condition then
  action
otherwise if other condition then
  other action
end if

For Each Loops

numbers is a list containing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

# The 'in' keyword is optional
for each num in numbers do
  print num
end for

# Can also be written as
for each num numbers do
  print num
end for

While Loops

count is 0

while count is less than 10 do
  count is count plus 1
  print count
end while

Operators

Comparison Operators

# Equality (context-aware 'is')
if x is 5 then
  print "x equals 5"

# Comparisons
if x is greater than 10 then
  print "x is large"

if x is less than 5 then
  print "x is small"

# Existence check
if value exists then
  print "value is not nothing"
end if

Arithmetic Operators

# Addition
sum is a plus b
sum is 5 plus 3

# Subtraction
difference is a minus b

# Multiplication
product is a times b

# Division
quotient is a divided by b

# Modulo
remainder is a modulo b

Logical Operators

# Logical AND
if condition1 and condition2 then
  print "both are true"
end if

# Logical OR
if condition1 or condition2 then
  print "at least one is true"
end if

# Logical NOT
if not condition then
  print "condition is false"
end if

String Operations

String concatenation uses the plus keyword or the concatenate function.

# String concatenation with 'plus'
greeting is 'Hello, ' plus name
message is prefix plus suffix

# String concatenation with function
greeting is call function concatenate with argument 'Hello, ' and argument name

# Convert to string
text_value is convert number to text

Classes and Objects

Object-oriented programming in Layman uses natural English for class definitions and object creation.

# Class definition
define class Person that has
  property name of type String
  property age of type Number

  define function greet that returns Void
    greeting is "hello, my name is " plus name
    print greeting

# Object creation
alice is a new Person with
  name which is 'Alice'
  age which is 30

# Call method on object
call function greet on alice

# Class inheritance
define class Student that extends Person
  property school of type String

student is a new Student with
  name which is 'Bob'
  age which is 20
  school which is 'University'

Collections

# Lists
numbers is a list containing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
first is item 1 of numbers

# Dictionaries
person is a dictionary containing
  name which is 'Alice'
  age which is 30

name is get name from person

Error Handling

# Try-catch blocks
try
  result is 10 divided by 0
  print result
catch error
  print "error occurred: " plus error
end try

# Throwing errors
if count is less than 0 then
  throw "count cannot be negative"
end if

Imports and Modules

# Import a module
import math from 'std/math'

# Use imported functions
result is call function math.square with 5

# Import without path (searches standard locations)
import collections

Comments

# Comments start with # and continue to end of line
# This is a comment

# Multi-line comments require # on each line
# This is line one of a comment
# This is line two of a comment

name is 'Alice'  # inline comment

Language Guide