I'm grateful to Savio for mentioning the Cobra language in his Open Sources blog. I had a look at Cobra this weekend, and found it rather interesting. Microsoft has always touted the .NET Framework as being language-agnostic. In the early days of the Framework, that sounded more like coordinated PR than a real technical characteristic of the Framework. As it turns out, though, it was true. C# may be the premier I’m grateful to Savio for mentioning the Cobra language in his Open Sources blog. I had a look at Cobra this weekend, and found it rather interesting.Microsoft has always touted the .NET Framework as being language-agnostic. In the early days of the Framework, that sounded more like coordinated PR than a real technical characteristic of the Framework. As it turns out, though, it was true.C# may be the premier .NET language, because that’s the language in which most of the class libraries are written, and Visual Basic .NET may be a close runner-up. But there are dozens of other languages written for the .NET Framework, with a range of styles and amenities. Some of these are from third-party language developers — Eiffel comes immediately to mind — and some are from internal Microsoft groups, like the ML-derived F# language from Microsoft Research. Still others are or were open source efforts: a classic example is Jim Hugunin’s IronPython, which is now sponsored by Microsoft. In some ways, Cobra reads like a blend of Python and Eiffel. It uses indentation like Python, and supports contracts like Eiffel. It has additional influences, listed here.When I talk about a new programming language, I usually start with its “Hello, World!” program.""" This is the infamous "Hello, world." example. And this text you are reading right now is the "doc string" for the whole program. You can also put doc strings underneath classes, class variables, methods and properties. """ class Hello def main is shared print 'Hello, world.'That little sample doesn’t do justice to the language, however. This page explains some of the key features. The Wordcount sample illustrates Cobra’s inline tests and object-oriented programming in a reasonably sized program that actually does something. It’s worth downloading Cobra and trying it yourself. You’ll need .NET 2.0 or Mono. Don’t expect Visual Studio integration, Windows Forms support, debugging support, or even a syntax-aware editor. Do expect an interesting language for console applications that’s on the verge of becoming useful. Software Development