I wanted to make a programming language that resembled magical circles. This is more like a way to write PostScript that looks like a magical circle, but I will refer to it as Mystical in this document.
The structure of Mystical is based on rings. These are circular bands of text and sigils, with an inner and outer border. The content of the main ring of a program starts at the rightmost (3:00) point and flow continues widdershins (counter-clockwise) both to respect postscript's angles and to reflect the assumption that these rings should be written from the outside. Subsidiary rings start from their attachment point to their caller.
There are three types of rings in Mystical:
- executable arrays, written in { } in PostScript, are represented with simple circular borders on the inside and outside of the ring, with a star of some sort inside. The start/end point is marked by a symbol based on the "work complete" symbol from alchemy.
- non-executable arrays, written in [ ] in PostScript, are the same but without the star. The start/end point is marked with a simple triangle.
- dictionaries, written in << >> in PostScript, are polygons with a double outer border and a single inner border. The start/end point is marked the same as the array.
Many built-in operators have been given their own sigils. These are used in place of the text of the operator if it appears as a name or operator (but not if it appears as a string). I have generally made these sigils based on the initial of the command and an illustration of the concept, though in some cases I have taken a more fully illustrative route or created some standard visual language.
The full text of The Handbook of Applied Cryptography, one of the best textbooks available in the field. The original authors have gotten permission from the publisher to put the text online as sets of PostScript and .pdf files for anyone to download and share.