Guide structure and conventions¶

The guide is divided into three parts.

Level 1 covers the language basics. It gives you a fairly complete coverage of all the basics that would be required to write very simple programs.

Level 2 covers the more complex concepts such as modules and classes. It will give you a good foundation for the syntax and mechanics of these concepts without going too deep into how you can use them (there are better books on the topic).

Bonus material will cover miscellaneous topics that are outside of the scope of a language guide. These topics include such things as building and testing Imba programs.

Cheats¶

Each section has a Cheats heading which gives an express overview for experienced programmers.

Conventions¶

Strict¶

Imba, by default, does not compile with use strict. The code examples in this guide will assume use strict. If you don't know what this means, always be sure to have "use strict" as the first line in your Imba files. You can read more about the strict mode on MDN.

The global object¶

In code snippets, we will use window as the global object. Keep in mind that on NodeJS, this object is called global.

Compiler output¶

In the code examples, we will sometimes reference the compiled JavaScript code. The result of the compilation will usually be presented in the same line or the line below, and will be in the #>> code... format for brevity.

When the space does not permit, compiled code will be presented as a separate code block that includes the comment /*** compiler output ***/ at the top.

JavaScript programmer warnings¶

In some sections, we include a warning box to warn JavaScript developers of significant differences between Imba and JavaScript. Like this: