 | This article needs more citations. (May 2026) |
| Rapira | |
|---|---|
 Part of a Rapira program. | |
| Paradigms | procedural, structured |
| Designed by | Andrey Ershov |
| First appeared | 1982 |
| Typing discipline | dynamic |
| Scope | Lexical (static) |
| Platform | Agat, PDP-11 (clones: Electronika, DVK series); Intel 8080, Zilog Z80 |
| Influenced by | |
| ALGOL, POP-2, SETL | |
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". Retrieved 29 July 2026.
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", 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, retrieved 29 July 2026
External links
- Rapira Reborn, instructional book for learning Rapira