The Story of Quill
Why Quill exists
Building a backend today means stitching together a framework, a database library, a validation library, a test runner and a pile of dependencies. Then production goes down anyway, because of a null nobody checked, a failure nobody handled, or a price that rounded wrong.
Quill was started to make that everyday work dramatically less painful: a language where intent is clear, failures are explicit, and correctness is part of the code.
The founder
Ngwang Shalom Tamnjong, also known as Json, is from Bamenda, in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. In October 2026 he was building a talent-booking application, the full stack: the part people use, and the service behind it. That work is where Quill began.
How it started
He wanted a language a beginner could start with, and one powerful enough for backend applications and AI-powered systems. A simple language for the next generation.
The talent-booking application made the problem plain. Languages already in use were hard to learn. A backend meant installing many pieces and combining them before the real work could run, and the learning curve was steep. On 13 October 2026 he started Quill, so that beginning would stay simple, and so the same language could carry serious backend and AI work. The first program, say "Hello, World!", ran the same day.
The name
He chose a short name that would be easy to remember: Quill. The feather in the logo carries the same meaning. The language should feel light: easy to get started, easy to learn, easy to adopt, and still very powerful.
Timeline
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 13 October 2026 | Work on Quill begins. The first program, say "Hello, World!", runs the same day. |
| 13 October 2026 | Quill is published on GitHub as an open-source project under the Apache 2.0 license. |
| 13 October 2026 | v0.1.0, the first release, with installers for macOS, Linux and Windows. |
| 13 October 2026 | v0.2.0 adds arithmetic with exact decimals, values inside text, var and set, and when. |
| 13 October 2026 | The Quill book and the language specification are published, and every change to Quill is documented in them from now on. |
| 13 October 2026 | v0.3.0 adds quill update, to choose and install any version from a menu, and a notice when a new version is out. |
| 14 October 2026 | v0.3.1 adds lists, records, loops, functions, exact money, maybe, and failures. |
| 20 October 2026 | v0.4.0 adds contracts (require, ensure), where for ranges and for filtering records, get and sum for asking data without a loop, a when that gives a value, on that carries on, and examples that test a function. |
| 3 November 2026 | v0.4.2 adds count, average, and sorted by, types, exact rounding and splitting of money, files brought together with bring, permits, JSON, web requests, asking an AI model, and web services. Quill files end in .quill. |
| 3 November 2026 | v0.4.5 adds eleven templates for quill new, from learning exercises to backends, AI services, finance, and automation, and text tools: trim, contains, split, join, replace, and more. The book’s examples now have the editor’s colors. |
| 3 November 2026 | v0.4.8 adds the app template, a whole app with a backend, an AI assistant, and exact money working together. Quill’s colors work in VS Code’s Restricted Mode and in Markdown files. |
Where Quill is going
From the start, Quill has been for everyone who builds software: developers, system engineers, script engineers, and AI developers.
His hope for the years ahead is that Quill stands among the most adopted languages, with a large community, and that it is used in production mobile applications.
Join in
Quill is built in the open, and this story is still being written. If you’d like to be part of it, read the contributor guide.