Last Updated on July 13, 2023
Dylan is a multi-paradigm programming language that includes support for functional and object-oriented programming (OOP), and is dynamic and reflective while providing a programming model designed to support generating efficient machine code, including fine-grained control over dynamic and static behaviors.
Dylan uses an algebraic infix syntax similar to Pascal or C, but supports an object model not unlike the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS).
It was created in the early 1990s by a group led by Apple Computer.
Here’s our recommended tutorials to learn this language.
1. An Introduction to Dylan by Dylan Hackers
Introduction to Dylan is a tutorial written for those with solid programming experience in C++ or another object-oriented, static language. It provides a gentler introduction to Dylan than does the Dylan Reference Manual (DRM).
2. Dylan Programming by Neal Feinberg, Sonya E. Keene, Robert O. Mathews, P. Tucker Withington
This is a book length tutorial to help anyone learning dynamic, object-oriented programming, whether it be in Dylan, Java, Smalltalk, or Lisp.
The primary goals of this book are to teach you how to program in Dylan, and how to write programs in an object-oriented style. Along the way, the authors hope to convince you to use Dylan. It’s intended to be a practical, elegant, and fun language to use. This book is a tutorial on programming in Dylan, and it does the following:
- Begins with the most basic use of Dylan, and gradually expands to show the more powerful and advanced techniques.
- Gives the flavor of working with the Dylan language in a typical Dylan environment.
- Shows how to define classes and methods that work together to solve a problem.
- Shows how to use many of Dylan’s classes, functions, and features to good effect within the context of an example application.
- Introduces the more advanced features of Dylan, including multiple inheritance, performance, exceptions, and macros.
3. Building Applications With DUIM by Dylan Hackers
This manual, Building Applications using DUIM, provides an introduction to developing your own windowed applications using Open Dylan and, in particular, the interface-building functionality provided by the DUIM library suite. It is designed to complement Getting Started with Open Dylan, which provides information on using the Open Dylan development environment, and the DUIM Reference Manual, which provides a complete reference to the DUIM library suite.
All tutorials in this series:
| Free Programming Tutorials | |
|---|---|
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| C | General-purpose, procedural, portable, high-level language |
| C++ | General-purpose, portable, free-form, multi-paradigm language |
| C# | Combines the power and flexibility of C++ with the simplicity of Visual Basic |
| Chapel | Parallel-programming language in development at Cray Inc. |
| Clojure | Dialect of the Lisp programming language |
| ClojureScript | Compiler for Clojure that targets JavaScript |
| COBOL | Common Business-Oriented Language |
| CoffeeScript | A very succinct programming language that transcompiles into JavaScript |
| Coq | Dependently typed language similar to Agda, Idris, F*, Lean, and others |
| Crystal | General-purpose, concurrent, multi-paradigm, object-oriented language |
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| D | General-purpose systems programming language with a C-like syntax |
| Dart | Client-optimized programming language for fast apps |
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| Elixir | Relatively new functional language that runs on the Erlang virtual machine |
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| Factor | Dynamic stack-based language |
| Forth | Imperative stack-based programming language |
| Fortran | The first high-level language, using the first compiler |
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| Groovy | Powerful, optionally typed and dynamic language |
| Hack | For the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), created as a dialect of PHP |
| Haml | HTML Abstraction Markup Language |
| Haskell | Standardized, general-purpose, polymorphically, statically typed language |
| HTML | HyperText Markup Language |
| Icon | High-level, general-purpose language |
| Imba | Full-stack language that compiles to performant JavaScript |
| J | Array programming language based primarily on APL |
| Java | General-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, high-level language |
| JavaScript | Interpreted, prototype-based, scripting language |
| Julia | High-level, high-performance language for technical computing |
| Kotlin | Statically typed, general-purpose programming language with type inference |
| LabVIEW | Designed to enable domain experts to build power systems quickly |
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| Less | Backwards-compatible language extension for Cascading Style Sheets |
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| Lua | Designed as an embeddable scripting language |
| Markdown | Plain text formatting syntax designed to be easy-to-read and easy-to-write |
| MoonScript | Dynamic scripting programmer friendly language that compiles into Lua |
| Nim | Statically typed compiled systems language with syntax resembling Python |
| Objective-C | General purpose language which is a superset of C |
| OCaml | General-purpose, powerful, high-level language |
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| OpenCL | Open Computing Language |
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| Perl | High-level, general-purpose, interpreted, scripting, dynamic language |
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| Python | General-purpose, structured, powerful language |
| QML | Hierarchical declarative language for user interface layout with a syntax to JSON |
| R | De facto standard among statisticians and data analysts |
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| Roff | Extensible text formatting language and a set of programs for printing |
| Ruby | General purpose, scripting, structured, flexible, fully object-oriented language |
| Rust | Ideal for systems, embedded, and other performance critical code |
| Scala | Modern, object-functional, multi-paradigm, Java-based language |
| Scheme | General-purpose, functional, language descended from Lisp and Algol |
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| Swift | Powerful and intuitive general-purpose programming language |
| Tcl | Dynamic language based on concepts of Lisp, C, and Unix shells |
| TypeScript | Strict syntactical superset of JavaScript, adding optional static typing |
| V | Statically typed compiled language to build maintainable software |
| Vala | Object-oriented language with a self-hosting compiler that generates C code |
| VHDL | Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language |
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| Zig | General-purpose programming language and toolchain |