Rapira (Рапира) – Soviet programming language interpreter
by begoon on 5/25/2026, 8:37:36 AM
https://github.com/begoon/rapira
Comments
by: zerr
Refal is an interesting functional programming language <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refal" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refal</a>
5/28/2026, 2:31:53 PM
by: nivertech
This Soviet project developed two Russian-language PLs: Robic[1] and Rapira[2]. Robic was similar to Logo, but unlike Logo, which had only one actor - a turtle, Robik had several: a Train, an Ant, a Painter, and so on<p>Rapira was more like SETL + Python. It was a dynamic interpreted PL with a rich set of compound data types, such as sets, records (associative arrays), and so on. Compared to the contemporary BASIC, it was ADVANCED<p>Like Logo, Robik was used to teach programming to kindergarthen-age children, while Rapira was aimed at high school students<p>---<p>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robic" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robic</a> / <a href="https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BA" rel="nofollow">https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BA</a><p>2. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapira" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapira</a> / <a href="https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B0_(%D1%8F%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BA_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F)" rel="nofollow">https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%80...</a>
5/28/2026, 1:05:00 PM
by: ahmedfromtunis
I wish the Soviets had focused more on developing an independent computer industry and their own distinct flavors of programming languages.<p>Imagine the thrill of studying languages built to run on completely separate hardware architectures, featuring entirely novel paradigms and structures.<p>This would be the closest thing to experience reverse-engineering a computer from an alien spaceship.
5/28/2026, 11:10:47 AM
by: grishka
By the way, there's one Cyrillic programming language still in wide use today. It's part of 1С (1S), an ERP system that's absolutely everywhere in Russia.<p>The language itself is quite similar to Visual Basic. It's awkward to write with a regular Russian keyboard layout, but I was told that there exist special layouts just for it.
5/28/2026, 1:13:23 PM
by: gus_massa
It feels like Pascal in Cyrillic. Autotranslation, with a little manual correction, but I can't fix КНЦ (autotranlated to KNC):<p><pre><code> FUNC FACT (N); NAME: R; 1 -> P; FOR I FROM 1 TO N :: R * I -> R ALL RES: R KNC; FOR N FROM 0 TO 6 :: ? "FACT(", N, ") = ", FACT(N) ALL;</code></pre>
5/26/2026, 5:49:20 PM
by: chaidhat
Missed opportunity to make all variables global and public.
5/28/2026, 2:19:50 PM
by: ymir_e
The playground on [demin.ws/rapira](<a href="https://demin.ws/rapira/" rel="nofollow">https://demin.ws/rapira/</a>) feels well made.<p>This is a pretty cool historical artifact.<p>Does anyone use "native language" programming languages in education or day to day?
5/28/2026, 9:50:53 AM
by: arcadialeak
There is also an independent open-source interpreter for 1C language (which is to this day reported to be extensively used in Russian enterprise) implemented in C#. I haven't tried it myself, but just though that it's also worth mentioning here as the project seems to be actively worked on: <a href="https://github.com/evilbeaver/onescript" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/evilbeaver/onescript</a>
5/28/2026, 9:59:07 AM
by: DeathArrow
In an alternate universe where Soviets won the Cold War, we would be writing in Russian on новостихакеров.рф and arguing which vacuum tubes make the best computers.
5/28/2026, 12:30:08 PM
by: mdtrooper
it remembers to me <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAKON" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAKON</a> a powerful flow chart (from the USSR) .
5/28/2026, 11:28:32 AM
by: youarenotyu
I need one for Japanese
5/28/2026, 1:48:59 PM
by: danslo
I could be wrong, but I believe the name is in reference to the Divine Rapier, an item in Dota 2, which is very popular among Russian speakers.
5/28/2026, 12:18:56 PM