calculang

Author

functional language

calculations described by pure-functions with no side-effects
- purity: same inputs => same outputs; predictability for calculations
no side-effects facilitates safe recalculation
- when we want to validate, or investigate calculations, for example
comparable to “formulae” in spreadsheet parlance

only for calculations

this is a wide scope on computers

what does separation of concerns do/can do?

encapsulate calculations/numbers/workings (without other messing)
frictionless transparency into calculations/numbers/workings
facilitate sharing numbers and a defined link to their calculations/workings

also:

with a domain-specific language for numbers, we can make specialised tools for numbers
- explore, interpret, visualize, …
and we can develop a language for flexible and re-usable formulae

current implementation details

calculang-js: looks like JS/ESM (but invalid) and cul-js compiles calculang to (valid) JS/ESM
- cul-js piggybacks off tools like babel and webpack 🙌

calculang is free software

GitHub calculang/calculang

calculang website & community gallery TBC

Applications

calculang is unopinonated about how used (in theory).

calcudata is a convenient way to pull results from calculang models
calcuvizspec uses calcudata to map model formulae/inputs directly to visualization channels (thanks UW IDL and Vega Lite).

See code for example applications in ➤ Code blocks within applications.