Adrian Ledda, 2005

Meta is a lisp-style programming language that provides very good integration with .NET. Its primary goal is to provide a high-quality programming environment that will allow beginning programming students to write relatively sophisticated programs using a relatively unintimidating development environment (editor and debugger). Its secondary goal is to provide a slow (its interpreted) but otherwise industrial-strength lisp system with extremely good .NET integration.

Please note: all images on this site were generated by students in Meta and used by permission.

Downloads

Meta is free, open-source software. It can be downloaded from the Current version page. Meta requires .NET version 2.0 or 3.0 and DirectX 9.

Documentation

Documentation is available online here at the wiki:

• The quickstart page gives a quick introduction to editing, executing, and debugging code.
• The editor
• The debugger
• The object browser
• Other useful debugging tools
• The Reference Manual documents the syntax, semantics, and built-in procedures of Meta.

Libraries:

• The Vector Graphics package is a simple vector graphics library used in the ANIM_ARTS 101 and EECS-111
• The Adventure game shell, 2D Game Shell, and 3D Game Shell
• The various .NET libraries

Technical stuff:

• The Release notes give information about the added features, bug fixes, and known bugs of the different versions.
• The Implementation notes give information on the implementation of Meta for Lisp and C# hackers.

The Meta language Development Environment Debugging tools Tutorials Scheme Game programming .NET Software downloads

Ian Horswill