pIRCIS
IRCIS is an esoteric programming language, and a very likeable one. A program is a grid of characters. A runner starts in the corner and walks through it, doing whatever it lands on: arrows turn it, quotes give it words, digits give it numbers, a # prints whatever is on top of its stack, and a * splits it into two runners going different ways. The program is a picture of itself. Every program you write is a small maze, and if you can draw, you can code.
pIRCIS runs IRCIS programs on your iPhone or iPad, and gives you everything you need to write your own.
LEARN IRCIS, ONE ARROW AT A TIME
Learn IRCIS is a free guide on GitHub, and the LEARN IRCIS button on the app's SYS page opens it in your browser. It starts with one runner and one arrow and works up, in twenty short sections, to loops, numbers, arithmetic, variables, questions, chance, pauses and runners that split, with a program to try in every section and a set of exercises at the end.
It was written for someone who has never programmed, and with the app beside it, it makes a good project: an afternoon, a term, or a rainy week, at any age. Children get a language they can hold in their head after an hour and a grid they can draw on paper; adults get a puzzle with real depth, because the same handful of symbols will do a Morse decoder, a Fibonacci sequence or and all sorts of other things.
SEE WHAT IT IS THINKING
Run a program at four speeds, or step it forwards and back one move at a time. Turn on the trail and every cell a runner has crossed stays lit, so a finished program shows its whole path. Under the grid, a readout says what each runner is about to do next - push 20, save N=20, print 3, split, check false - and what is on its stack. Nothing is hidden. If your program does something odd, step it and watch where it went wrong.
WRITE YOUR OWN
The editor has its own keyboard with every IRCIS symbol on it, one tap each, so a program is quick to lay out and quick to change. Tap any cell of a running program and the editor opens right there. Save your programs, share them as plain text, and open .txt files from Files or from another app. A program is just text, so one you wrote on the phone runs anywhere IRCIS does.
61 PROGRAMS TO START WITH
Counting, Deciding, Decoding, Talking and Watching. Hello World, Fibonacci, a few digits of Pi, a Morse decoder, a Magic Eight Ball, a fortune teller, an insult machine, a snake, a racetrack with random pit stops, and eight runners that draw the word IRCIS. Some are ten characters long. Some took a while.
THE REST
- Pinch to zoom and drag to scroll, or switch to on-screen buttons.
- Day and night themes. iPhone and iPad, either way up.
- No account, no adverts, nothing collected.
pIRCIS started as firmware for a small touch-screen board, and this is the same program on iOS. If you would rather have it on a desk, the firmware, the parts list and the build steps are on GitHub. IRCIS, "I Run Chars I See", is the work of Arjun Nair; the interpreter here is a port of his, checked against it step for step.
