1. Introduction

1.1. Goals of the Language

Alba shall be an easy to learn functional programming language. Easy to learn means that is easy to write simple web applications or simple console applications, even for newcomers to programming.

However internally alba offers all the goodies of dependent types including the possibility to write fully certified programs. Programs written in alba cannot produce runtime errors. All errors are compile time errors.

A big challenge to reach the goal is to design the type system so that it does not get in the way. Furthermore it is very important to print understandable error messages.

1.2. Goals for Version 1

Mandatory goals:

• Web applications in the elm style

• Playground for experimenting with dependent types

• Compilation to intermediate representation in human readable form (see chapter Intermediate Representation)

Nice to have goals:

• Simple node applications

Not necessary:

• Universe polymorphism

• Other backends (only javascript required in order to run on the browser)