What is Otter?

Otter is a programming language you can read aloud. Programs use everyday words and indentation instead of punctuation-heavy syntax, and they still behave exactly and predictably.

Readable like English. Precise like code.

Every statement has one clear meaning. Words such as is, and, minus, is at least and of do the work that symbols do in other languages, so a program reads like a description of what it does. Blocks are closed with a period, and a period is never used for anything else.

What runs Otter

Otter runs on Windows PowerShell 5.1, which is already part of Windows 10 and Windows 11, so there is nothing extra to install there; on macOS and Linux it runs on PowerShell 7. The otter command runs programs, checks them, starts an interactive session, creates and builds projects, and compiles programs into web applications.

What makes it different

- Statements read as sentences: age is 29, say "Hello", add 5 to score.

- Errors are written for people: the message names the line, says what went wrong in plain words, and suggests a fix. Raw stack traces never reach you.

- One small set of ideas covers scripts, desktop apps, web apps, servers, files, data and networking.

- No hidden magic: a missing variable is an error, dividing by zero is an error, and text is never silently converted to bytes.