Write your first WFL program

WFL mirrors how people think — natural-language syntax, almost no special characters, and errors that actually tell you what to do. A first language you never have to unlearn.

WFL is an open-source language built in Rust. Grab a release build, or build it from source with cargo build --release. Then you have one command — wfl — that runs a program, lints it, or drops you into a REPL.

1# Build WFL from source (Rust)
2cargo build --release
3 
4# ...or grab a release binary, then check it works
5wfl --version

Your first program

Create a file called hello.wfl. There is no boilerplate, no main function, and no semicolons — you write what you mean.

1// hello.wfl
2store name as "World"
3display "Hello, " with name

Run it

Point the CLI at your file. That's the whole build step.

1wfl hello.wfl
2Hello, World!

A web server, in plain English

No frameworks required — HTTP servers, routing, and responses are built in. Here is a complete server that answers on port 8080:

1// A web server, in plain English
2listen on port 8080 as server
3display "Running at http://127.0.0.1:8080"
4 
5wait for request comes in on server as req
6check if path is equal to "/":
7    respond to req with "Hello from WFL!"
8otherwise:
9    respond to req with "Not found" and status 404
10end check

Where to next

Back to the overview