Pygmy and Javascript === Pygmy not only compiles into Javascript, but it is heavily influenced by Javascript. Many of the design decisions in Pygmy were made specifically to improve on Javascript. Sensible Assignment and Scoping --- There are a couple things about assignment in Javascript that bothered me a little bit - There is no way to declare constants - The `var` keyword makes assignments unnecessarily verbose - Assigning a value to a variable in a child function might inadvertently mutate the value of a parent variable. Pygmy variables are declared using the `:` operator, and constants are declared with the `::` operator. x: 1 pi:: 3.14159 Variables in a parent function cannot be reassigned in a child function unless you use the parent-scope reassignment operator (`~:`). Unless you use this special operator, variables declared with the same name in a child function will shadow the one in the parent function. x: 4 (){ x: 5 ;Declares local variable }! (){ x~: 5 ;Reassigns parent variable }! Concise function notation --- There is no `function` keyword in Pygmy, and you do not put commas in between argument names. Functions are declared as a constant assignment. The last expression evaluated in the function is the return value, so no `return` keyword is necessary. You can conditionally return early with the `=>` operator, which returns the right operand if the left operand evaluates to `true`. multiply:: (x y) { x = 0 => 0 x * y } Flexible Function Calls --- Pygmy is very flexible about how functions can be called, which allows the programmer to lay out the code in a way that reads most naturally. There are five different ways to call a function in Pygmy.You can call a function with prefix notation, suffix notation, infix notation, void notation, and closed prefix notation. Void notation is only used when you are not passing any arguments to a function. Closed prefix notation can accept zero or more arguments. The others function call notations can accept one or more arguments. alert| "hello" ;prefix notation "hello" \alert ;suffix notation times:: (a b) { alert| a * b } times| 3, 4 ;prefix notation 3, 4 \times ;suffix notation 3 \times| 4 ;infix notation times*[3 4] ;closed prefix notation sayHello:: (){ alert| "Hello" } sayHello! ;void notation sayHello*[] ;closed prefix notation Referenceable properties in object literals --- In Pygmy, unlike Javascript, you can refer to other properties of the same object in an object literal. Also, the comma between each property definition is not used. obj: { firstName: "Peter" lastName: "Olson" fullName: firstName & " " & lastName } Strong typing --- Pygmy will not coerce the types of operands to try to make them work together. Thus, there is only a strict equality operator `=` in Pygmy. There are separate operators for addition (`+`) and string concatenation (`&`).