Egg 🥚🐣

Egg is a minimalist, whimsical programming language inspired by eggs and birds , designed to be simple, fun, and easy to extend.

• Built for the VelociCode challenge, EggLang embraces the prehistoric spirit of the event by treating eggs not just as symbols, but as a full-blown design philosophy. From the syntax (yolk, hatch, carton, crackup) to the underlying mechanics, every part of EggLang is inspired by birds, eggs, and evolutionary fun.

• Just like life hatching from an egg, every EggLang program begins with a humble yolk (variable), evolves through control flow like loop and shellmatch, and ends with a glorious hatch (output). It's a language that doesn’t just run , it evolves on your terminal, one 🐣 at a time.

Features

• Variables with yolk (assignment)
• Pattern matching with shellmatch / case / default
• Arrays called carton with methods (append, pop, remove)
• Control flow:
  • Conditional blocks with if/else/endif
  • Loops with loop condition { ... }
• Functions definition and calls with fun/crackup and lay
• Built-in utilities (random(), eggtime(), len(), type())
• File inclusion with incubate filename.egg
• Simple output via hatch

Getting Started

Requirements

• Python 3.x
  Install it from python.org or use the instructions below.

  Mac:

  /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
  brew install python
  python3 --version

  Windows:

  • Download from: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
  • Run the installer and check “Add Python to PATH”
  • Confirm installation:

    python --version

• Node.js (for the CLI and VSCode extension)
  Get it from nodejs.org or install via terminal:

  Mac:

  brew install node
  node -v
  npm -v

  Windows:

  • Download the LTS version from https://nodejs.org/
  • Run the installer (npm included)
  • Confirm:

    node -v
    npm -v

• VS Code (to use the extension)

  • Download from: https://code.visualstudio.com/
  • Install relevant extensions from the Extensions Marketplace inside VS Code.

Run Egg Code

• Install the Egg CLI globally:

npm install -g egglang-cli

Then run any .egg file:

egg run dino.egg

Egg Language Syntax Examples

Variable Assignment

yolk x = 5
yolk greeting = "hello"

Pattern Matching

yolk action = "crack"

shellmatch action
  case "crack":
    hatch "Breaking stuff"
  case "hatch":
    hatch "Output detected"
  default:
    hatch "Unknown behavior"
endshell

Arrays (carton)

# Traditional fixed-size array
carton nest 3
fill nest at 0 with 10
hatch nest at 0  # outputs: 10

# Dynamic array initialization
carton eggs = [1, 2, 3]
eggs.append(4)      # [1, 2, 3, 4]
yolk first = eggs.pop()  # removes 4
eggs.remove(0)      # removes at index 0 → [2, 3]

Control Flow

if-else blocks

yolk x = 10
if x > 5:
    hatch "x is large"
else:
    hatch "x is small"
endif

Loops

yolk i = 0;
loop i < 5 {
    yolk i = i + 1;
}

Functions

Define a function:

crackup say_hello
  hatch "Hello from Egg!"
lay

Call a function:

crackup say_hello

Built-in Functions

• random(a, b) - random int between a and b

• eggtime() - current timestamp string

• len(x) - length of string or list

• type(x) - type name of value

File Inclusion

• Use incubate filename.egg to include and run another Egg file.

How It Works (Under the Hood)

• The interpreter parses and executes Egg code line-by-line

• Variables are stored in environments (yolk assigns values)

• Arrays (carton) support:

  • Indexed access (at)

  • Dynamic methods (append, pop, remove)

  • Both fixed-size and dynamic initialization

• Control flow:

  • if/else/endif blocks

  • loop condition { ... } constructs

• Pattern matching uses shellmatch blocks

• Functions are defined as named code blocks and called with crackup

• Built-in EggTools functions extend language capabilities

• Simple error handling prints fragile: messages

Example: Complete Egg Script

incubate utils.egg

# Array demo
carton eggs = [1, 2, 3];
eggs.append(4);
hatch len(eggs);  # 4
yolk num1 = eggs.pop();  # removes 4
yolk num2 = eggs.remove(0);  # removes at index 0 → [2, 3]
crackup add
crackup multiply

yolk num = 7
crackup is_even     # prints "Odd"


# Loop demo
yolk i = 0;
loop i < len(eggs) {
    hatch eggs at i
    yolk i = i + 1
}

# Conditional demo
if len(eggs) > 2:
    hatch "Plenty of eggs!"
else:
    hatch "Need more eggs!"
endif

# Function demo
fun greet
    hatch "Hello from an egg function!"
lay

crackup greet

Contributing

Contributions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome!

• Fork the repo

• Create a new branch

• Submit a pull request

Easter Egg - 🥚 Eggspionage: Terminal Cam in ASCII

eggspionage

• Make sure you have opencv-python and numpy installed.
• Make sure you have web cam access enabled for vscode.
• Make sure to resize the terminal for a better experience.
• Use the slider to scroll to the bottom for current camera frames.
• By default, the terminal cam will render in base black text mode.
• Here -c refers to color mode. Use one of r, g, b, m, d. r = red, g = green, b = blue, m = multicolor, d = dino mode 🦖🥚.

Use VSCode terminal to run eggspionage for best experience.

Example:

eggspionage -c r

Features:

• 📸 Live webcam feed rendered in ASCII

• 🌈 Optional color mode

• ⌨️ Cross-platform compatibility (macOS, Linux, Windows)

• 🧠 Automatically scales to your terminal size

• ✂️ Gracefully exits on Ctrl+C

Thanks for cracking open Egg! 🥚🐣