The Whim Programming Language

Whim is an experimental programming language inspired by PHP and Hack. As a research project, it explores language ideas by putting them into practice, with the hope that useful ones can contribute to PHP’s future.

Do not use Whim in production.

function greet(string $name): string {
  return 'Hello, ' . $name . '!';
}

write_line!(greet('Ada'));

Whim has reified generics, value-based arrays, classes, interfaces, enums, pattern matching, async tasks, and a large standard library. The whim command runs and formats source files, prints bytecode, and manages Git dependencies.

This book explains the language as it works now. Whim has no promise of backward compatibility. A later release may change or remove any rule in this book.

Try Whim in the Whim playground without installing it.

Start with Installation, then write Your First Program.