Plain

Show words and ask questions

You can make a program that shows words on the screen and asks you questions. That's all most programs do: they show things, ask things, and work things out in between.

Show words

Put the words you want to show in double quotes, after show:

show "Hello there!"
show "Plain shows each line on its own."
Try it

What it shows:

Hello there!
Plain shows each line on its own.

Plain runs your steps from the top down, one line at a time.

Ask a question

ask shows a question and waits for an answer. and call it keeps the answer under a name, so you can use it later:

ask "What is your name?" and call it name
show "Nice to meet you, {name}!"
Try it

What you type:

Ann

What it shows:

What is your name? Ann
Nice to meet you, Ann!

The {name} part puts the answer into the text. You can put any name or value inside { }.

Numbers work too

If an answer looks like a number, Plain treats it as one:

ask "How old are you?" and call it age
show "Next year you will be {age plus 1}."
Try it

What you type:

41

What it shows:

How old are you? 41
Next year you will be 42.

Try it yourself

Press Try it on any example above, then change it: