Readable, with real types.
Type inference keeps the small things small. Records, choices, generics and typed collections give larger programs a solid structure.
Meet the language ↗ A modern, compiled BASIC / Linux x86-64
Familiar roots.
Room to grow.
BASIL brings the clarity of BASIC to modern native programming. Static types, safe ownership, and lightweight tasks — with a syntax you can read at a glance.
No interpreter. No ceremony. Just your program.
01 / A FAMILIAR BEGINNING
PRINT "Hello, world!"BASIC readabilityChecked ownershipNative executionStructured concurrency
01 — The language
Simple to start.
Substantial by design.
The compiler does the bookkeeping.
You express the work.
Grow from a one-line utility to a native application without changing languages.
Safety without a collector.
Independent values, checked borrowing and explicit resource transfers. Files and other owners clean up deterministically, including on failure.
Understand ownership ↗Let your program do more.
Stackful coroutines, typed tasks, channels and SELECT. Ordinary functions can suspend without spreading async syntax through your code.
Work with tasks ↗From source to executable.
A self-hosted compiler and integrated native linker. Ordinary application builds produce standalone Linux executables, with unused components omitted.
Build your first program ↗02 — A little code goes a long way
Looks familiar.
Goes further.
Real BASIL. Small, complete examples.
Choose a starting point and see what comes next.
Independent by default
A copy is your own.
Copyable values have independent contents. Updating a copied list leaves the original untouched. Read-only parameters borrow; BYREF explicitly permits mutation.
independent.bas BASIL
original = [10, 20, 30]
copy = original
copy[0] = 99
PRINT original[0]
PRINT copy[0]OUTPUT
10 99
Data with a shape
From JSON to your types.
Decode straight into a record. Defaults handle missing fields, and invalid supplied data raises a checked error. No hand-written field extraction.
Explore typed serialization → customer.bas BASIL
TYPE Customer
Id AS INTEGER
Name AS STRING = "Unknown"
END TYPE
customer = DecodeJSON("{""Id"":42}") AS Customer
PRINT customer.Id
PRINT customer.NameOUTPUT
42 Unknown
Concurrency you can follow
Start work. Keep the result.
A typed task owns its running work. Join it to observe a result or cancellation, with errors routed through the normal checked error model.
Coroutines & concurrent tasks → task.bas BASIL
worker = SPAWN Square(12)
IF LET answer = Join(worker) THEN
PRINT answer
ELSE
PRINT "Cancelled"
END IF
FUNCTION Square(value AS INTEGER) AS INTEGER
RETURN value * value
END FUNCTIONOUTPUT
144
Pixels, without a window
A native creative toolkit.
Create images, draw shapes and text, and encode PNGs without a GUI or external image library. Canvas follows the same checked ownership rules as your code.
Discover Canvas → picture.bas BASIL
image = NewCanvas(320, 120)
ClearCanvas(BYREF image, RGB(17, 21, 16))
FillRect(BYREF image, 20.0, 20.0, 80.0, 80.0,
RGB(103, 200, 0))
DrawBitmapText(BYREF image, "BASIL", 120, 50,
RGB(240, 245, 235), scale=2)
SaveImage(image, "hello.png")
PRINT "Saved hello.png"OUTPUT
Saved hello.png
These are native programs, not an in-browser interpreter. Build and run them locally ↗
03 — Ready for real work
Bring your ideas.
The tools are here.
Text and data. Networks and databases. Images and interfaces. BASIL’s standard library handles the everyday work, with additional libraries when your application needs more.
Explore the libraries →Text & collectionsUTF-8 · regex · encodings · typed containers↗Data & storageJSON · serialization · SQLite · binary I/O↗Connected applicationsTCP · TLS · HTTP · URLs · channels↗Images & drawingCanvas · image codecs · fonts · animation↗Beyond the standard libraryGTK · raylib · OpenAI-compatible APIs · Qdrant↗
04 — Learn at your own paceA proper manual.
A proper manual.
From the beginning.
Not just a list of functions. A guided path from hello, world to borrowing, coroutines and complete applications — with examples along the way.
- 25 teaching chapters, from first principles
- Detailed built-in and library references
- A searchable web edition and an offline PDF