Rapira
Rapira (Russian: Рапира, rapier) is an educational procedural programming language developed in the Soviet Union.[1] It was implemented on the Agat computer, PDP-11 clones (Electronika, DVK, BK series), and Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80 clones (Korvet). It is interpreted with a dynamic type system and high level constructions. The language originally had a Russian-based set of reserved words (keywords), but English and Romanian were added later. It was considered more elegant and easier to use than Pascal implementations of the time.[according to whom?]
Rapira was used to teach computer programming in Soviet schools. The integrated development environment included a text editor and a debugger.
Sample program:
ПРОЦ СТАРТ()
ВЫВОД: 'Привет, мир!!!'
КОН ПРОЦ
The same, but using the English lexics [sic, from the article referenced below]:
proc start()
output: 'Hello, world!!!';
end proc
Rapira's ideology was based on languages such as POP-2 and SETL, with strong influences from ALGOL.
Consequently, for example, Rapira implements a very strong and flexible data structure, named a tuple. In Rapira, these are heterogeneous lists with allowed operations such as indexing, joining, length count, getting of sublist, easy comparison, etc.
References
- ↑ Baraz, S.; Borovikov, E.V.; Glagoleva, N.G.; Zemtsov, P.A.; Nalimov, E.V.; Tsikoza, V.A. (1987). "Rapira Programming Language". http://ershov.iis.nsk.su/ru/node/772586.
Further reading
- Goodin, Laura Eileen (1991). Teaching a nation to compute: The Rapira project and Soviet information-technology education (MA thesis). American University. doi:10.57912/23876562.
- Ershov, A.P. (1988), "School Informatics in the USSR: From Literacy to Culture" (in en), Children in the Information Age (Elsevier): pp. 37–56, doi:10.1016/b978-0-08-036464-3.50008-9, ISBN 978-0-08-036464-3, https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/B9780080364643500089, retrieved 2026-07-29
External links
- Rapira Reborn, instructional book for learning Rapira
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