Python

Python is a popular scripting language that was first released in 1991. This article compares Python to MiniScript, and may be useful to people coming to MiniScript with a background in Python.

Similarities

Data Types

MiniScript's six data types have direct analogs to common types in Python:

• Numbers in MiniScript are double-precision floating point numbers, equivalent to Python's numbers.Real (aka float) data type. Note that in MiniScript, False and True are represented directly by the numbers 0 and 1; there is no separate bool type.

• Strings in both languages are an immutable sequence of Unicode code points. String literals in both languages can be enclosed in double-quotes; MiniScript does not have the optional single-quote or triple-quote syntax. While Python uses backslash-escaping to include a quotation mark within a literal, in MiniScript you just write the quotation mark twice, as in SQL.

• Lists in both languages are a mutable sequence of arbitrary values; a list literal uses square brackets surrounding comma-delimited values (see List Syntax, below). Note that MiniScript does not have a tuple type, and uses a list in situations where Python might use a tuple.

• Maps in both languages are mutable, unordered set of key-value pairs, with the same literal syntax (see Map Syntax and Object-Oriented Programming, below).

• Function objects in both languages are similar: first-class, callable objects. However functions in MiniScript have no attributes, and the syntax for defining functions is somewhat different.

• null is a special datatype in both languages, representing a null reference.

List Syntax

The syntax for list literals is the same in Python and MiniScript: a series of arbitrary values, separated by commas and surrounded by square brackets.

myList = ["apple", "banana", "cherry", "date"]

Index and slice syntax is also the same in both, except that MiniScript slicing supports only two parameters; it does not support the third (IndexJump) parameter.

myList[0]     // "apple"
myList[:2]    // ["apple", "banana"]
myList[-3:]   // ["banana", "cherry", "date"]
myList[1:-1]  // ["banana", "cherry"]
myList[:]     // independent copy of ["apple", "banana", "cherry", "date"]

Unlike Python, you cannot assign to a slice; you can only assign to a single index.

myList[1] = "orange"  // myList is now: ["apple", "orange", "cherry", "date"]
myList[1:3] = ["lemon"]   // DOES NOT WORK

Map Syntax

The syntax for map literals and map indexing is the same in Python and MiniScript:

m = {"one":1, "two":2, "three":3}
print m["two"]   // 2
m["pi"] = 3.14

Unlike Python, in MiniScript when a key in a map happens to also be a valid literal, it can be accessed via dot syntax.

print m.two  // 2
m.pi = 3.14157

MiniScript does not have a concept of "attributes" as something separate from key/value pairs in a map.

Variable Scope

Variables in both Python and MiniScript are local by default. There are some subtle differences, however: in Python, an inner function can implicitly access the variables of an outer function, but can't implicitly access global variables, while in MiniScript, any function can implicitly read values from both the outer context and the global context. To update a global variable, where Python uses a special global statement, MiniScript uses a globals prefix in a manner similar to using self to access object data.

(ToDo: example)

Object-Oriented Programming

(ToDo)

Differences

Language Scale

MiniScript is a considerably smaller language by any reasonable measure. For example, the following table compares Python and MiniScript on C/C++ source code lines, source code files, number of data types, and number of standard intrinsic functions, as of 2021 (source).

	Python	MiniScript
Source Lines	661,775	13,752
Source Files	718	46
Data Types	34	6
Intrinsics	69	53

Block Syntax

The most obvious difference between Python and MiniScript is in block syntax. While Python defines blocks by ending the opening line with a colon, and indenting the body of the block, MiniScript uses keyword pairs like if/end if, for/end for, and function/end function (more similar to Visual Basic). Indentation in MiniScript is strictly cosmetic, and is ignored by the compiler; and tools can automatically standardize or re-indent based on the keywords.

Python	MiniScript
def myfunc(): for i in range(1, 11): if i == 9: print("Almost done...") else: print(i) myfunc()	myFunc = function for i in range(1, 10) if i == 9 then print "Almost done..." else print i end if end for end function myFunc

Function Invocation

While functions in Python are always invoked by putting parentheses after a function reference, in MiniScript, such parentheses can be omitted when (1) the function call is the entire statement, or (2) there are no arguments.

Python	MiniScript
import random x = random.uniform(0,1) print(x)	x = rnd print x

range function

The very common built-in function range in both languages takes up to three arguments: start, stop, and step. But there are a few differences to note:

• In Python, the stop value is not included in the resulting sequence, while in MiniScript it is (i.e., it is an inclusive bound).
• In Python, if stop is less than start, the result is an empty list unless you also specify a negative step. In MiniScript, if step is omitted in such a case, it defaults to -1 (and you get a list that counts down).
• In Python, if only one argument is given, it is considered stop and the resulting sequence counts from 0 up to (but not including) that value. In MiniScript, a single argument is start and the resulting sequence counts from that number down (or up) to 0.
• In Python, the result of range is a range object; in MiniScript it is an ordinary list.