The Score Programming Language

About: Score is a programming language designed for blind and visually impaired students as an educational tool to learn to code by building a game and music which targeted primarily on children at the age of 12 - 16 years old

Fun fact: Score (or an alternative term for "sheet music") is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece

Why was "Score" developed?

• Much of the CS education tools for kid relies on visual representation and are not support screen reader software such as Scratch programming language
• Text-based programming in languages with traditional syntax (e.g. C++, Java, Javascript, or Python’s whitespace rules) are difficult to understand through audio
• There were no educational programs for blind and visually impaired students to learn to code in Thailand
• Build an educational tool for teachers to teach coding based on the national computer science curriculum

Language Design Principle

• Every instruction should be readable like an English sentence
• No indentation and whitespace required
• Execution output should be human-readable and audio oriented.

Try it yourself!!

1. Go to The Score Programming Language Playground
2. Let's start with this code and feel free to edit by yourself (and don't forget to turn audio on)

var n = 1
while n <= 14
    play note n for 0.2s
    set n = n + 1
end

3. Press shift + enter to run, or you can also hit the "RUN CODE" button on the top-right of the screen
4. See the result :)

Language Features

A. Variables

Variable declaration

var name = "Chun Rapeepat"
var bool = true
var score = 25.25

Variable reassignment

set score = 500;

B. Operators

Mathematical operators

var a = -10;
var b = 10 + 20;
var c = 10 - 20;
var d = 10 * 20;
var e = 10 / 20;
var f = (5 mod 2) + 10;

String concatenation

var name = "Chun"
var msg = "hello " + name

Logical operators

var a = true and false
var b = true or false
var c = not true

Comparison operators

var less = 10 < 20
var greater = 30 > 20
var lessThanOrEqualTo = 10 <= 10
var greaterThanOrEqualTo = 10 >= 10
var notEqual = 1 != 2

C. Control Flow

If statement

var num = 10
if num < 100
    print "num is less than 100"
end

If-else statement

var num = 10
if num < 100
    print "num is less than 100"
else
    print "num is greater than or equal to 100"
end

If-else else-if statement

var num = 10
if num < 100
    print "num is less than 100"
else if num == 100
    print "num is equal to 100"
else
    print "num is greater than 100"
end

While statement

var a = 1
while a <= 10
    print a
    set a = a + 1
end

Repeat statement

repeat 10 times
    print "hi!"
end

D. Statements

Print statement

var name = "Chun"

# the result will print to the screen
print "Hello my name is " + name

Say statement

# the result will produce via audio output
say "hello"

Play statement

# play note 1 in C major scale
play note 1

# play note 1 in C major scale in the next octave
play note 1 + 7

# play note 1 for 3 seconds
play note 1 for 3 secs

# or
play note 1 for 3s

var n = 1
repeat 50 times
    play note n for 0.2s
    set n = n + 1
end

Wait statement

print "hello"

wait 3s

print "world"

Exit program statement

print "start program"

exit

print "this line should not be executed"

E. Native Functions

Random function

var num = [random from 1 to 10]
print num

Ask function

var name = [ask "what is your name?"]
print "My name is " + name

var age = [ask "what is your age?" as number]
print age + 1

Application with play note statement

repeat 10 times
    play note [random from 1 to 14] for 0.2s
end

Future Improvement

• Setting customization such as voice or musical instrument
• Array data structure
• Load and play custom audio file
• Event listener
• Function declaration
• Global variable for multiple scripts

Context-free Grammar

Version: 1.0

program → statement* EOF

statement → exprStmt
	| printStmt
	| ifStmt
	| whileStmt
	| repeatStmt
	| varStmt
	| setStmt
	| sayStmt
	| waitStmt
	| playStmt
	| exitStmt
	| breakStmt
	| continueStmt
	| "\n"
exprStmt → expression "\n"
printStmt → "print" expression "\n"
ifStmt → "if" expression "\n" statement* "end" "\n"
	| "if" expression "\n" statement* "else" "\n" statement* "end" "\n"
	| "if" expression "\n" statement* "else" ifStmt
whileStmt → "while" expression "\n" statement* "end" "\n"
repeatStmt → "repeat" expression ID["times"] "\n" statement* "end" "\n"
breakStmt → "break" "\n"
continueStmt → "continue" "\n"
varStmt → "var" ID ("=" expression)? "\n"
setStmt → "set" ID "=" expression "\n"
sayStmt → "say" expression (ID["for"] expression (ID["secs"] | ID["s"]))? "\n"
waitStmt → "wait" expression (ID["secs"] | ID["s"]) "\n"
playStmt → "play" ID["note"] expression (ID["for"] expression (ID["secs"] | ID["s"]))? "\n"
exitStmt → "exit" "\n"

expression → logic_or
logic_or → logic_and ("or" logic_and)*
logic_and → equality ("and" equality)*
equality → comparison (( "!=" | "==" ) comparison)*
comparison → term (( ">" | ">=" | "<" | "<=" ) term)*
term → factor (( "-" | "+" ) factor)*
factor → unary (( "/" | "*" | "mod" ) unary)*
unary → ( "not" | "-" | "+" ) unary | primary | functionCall
functionCall → "[" ID expression* "]"
primary → NUMBER
	| STRING
	| "number" | "string" | "boolean"
	| "true" | "false"
	| "null"
	| "(" expression ")"
	| ID

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Made with 💖 by Chun Rapeepat