Questions

What's in a name?

The name "Rip" should be accepted at face value. It isn't an acronym, and it doesn't "stand" for anything. It was chosen because it is short enough to be used as a file extension without abbreviation, it wasn't used before and I think it's snappy.

Why create yet another programming language?

To learn and grow. Even if nobody (even me) ever builds anything with Rip, it's still a success as an informal computer science education. Creating a new programming language has exposed me to so many new concepts and has forced me to consider many details that I previously took for granted.

Is Rip object-oriented or functional?

Object-oriented programming and functional programming in many languages (languages with some concept of first-class functions) is really about coding styles, and not something the language is, per se. Rip attempts to follow a minimal set of rules and provides an API to make proponents of either style comfortable.