‘Computer language that anyone can read’ launches Aeternity compiler

Smart contract computer language Lexon (LEX) launched a compiler on Aug. 3, allowing developers to write contracts in Lexon and have them be converted into Solidity, Sophia, or Javascript, according to statements made to Cointelegraph by Lexon founder Henning Diedrich. The compiler runs on the Aeternity (AE) blockchain network and charges LEX tokens as payment for each compilation cycle.

Dubbed “the computer language anyone can read,” Lexon is a computer language intended to seem like an ordinary written or spoken language. Specifically, the current version is developed to look and sound like ordinary English.

In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Diedrich claimed that the language and compiler provide three main benefits to developers and users. First, it can be used as an educational tool to teach smart contract programming. Remix, a popular tool for learning Solidity, has developed a Lexon plugin that allows students to type agreements in Lexon and see their translations in Solidity, enabling them to understand what the Solidity code means in plain English. In Diedrich’s view, this can help students comprehend how Solidity and smart contracts work.

Second, contracts can be written in Lexon to make them “self-documenting.” Instead of a technical writer needing to write documentation explaining what the code does, the code itself can be written in a language that ordinary people can understand. Programmers have been trying to develop algorithms that can produce documentation from a set of code, but Lexon approaches the problem differently, making the code readable, Diedrich claimed.

Third, Lexon can be used to produce better graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and in a more automated way. “You can use the richness of the information to create better GUIs, because you can generate more from [this] human way of expressing the logic, than you can when you take as a starting point the third-generation language like Solidity,” Diedrich stated.

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Diedrich cautioned that the compiler can only translate in one direction, from Lexon to another language. It cannot translate another computer language back into Lexon. This means that it can’t be used, for example, to more easily debug smart contracts that were not initially written in Lexon, as he explained:

“Natural language is, of course, very much richer than third-generation…