Hacker News with Generative AI: Programming Languages

Rust's Downfall: From Rising Star to Rejected by Major Projects (medium.com)
Rust, once celebrated as a game-changer in systems programming, has found itself facing a wave of criticism following a string of high-profile setbacks.
Rust, Programming Languages, Software Development, Criticism
4 points by ThatGuyRaion 4 hours ago | 1 comments
Zig: What to Expect from Release Month (ziglang.org)
Programming Languages, Zig, Software Releases
120 points by enz 12 hours ago | 52 comments
Go 1.24 Interactive Tour (antonz.org)
Go 1.24 is scheduled for release in February, so it's a good time to explore what's new. The official release notes are pretty dry, so I prepared an interactive version with lots of examples showing what has changed and what the new behavior is.
Go, Programming Languages, New Releases, Software
14 points by JXzVB0iA 13 hours ago | 0 comments
Clojure core.async.flow (github.com/clojure)
The fundamental objective of core.async.flow is to enable a strict separation of your application logic from its topology, execution, communication, lifecycle, monitoring and error handling, all of which are provided by and centralized in, c.a.flow, yielding more consistent, robust, testable, observable and operable systems.
Clojure, Programming Languages, Software Architecture, Concurrency
56 points by cempaka 1 day ago | 3 comments
Show HN: A Common Lisp implementation in development (nongnu.org)
Common Lisp, Programming Languages, Software Development, Open Source
16 points by andreamonaco 2 days ago | 9 comments
Build a Database in Four Months with Rust and 647 Open-Source Dependencies (tisonkun.io)
Building a database from scratch is often considered daunting. However, the Rust programming language and its open-source community have made it easier.
Rust, Programming Languages, Databases, Open Source, Software Development
122 points by tison 2 days ago | 138 comments
Optimizing Ruby's JSON, Part 7 (byroot.github.io)
In the previous post, we started covering some parser optimizations. There’s just a handful more to cover until we reached what’s the state of the currently released version of ruby/json.
Ruby, JSON, Optimization, Programming Languages
10 points by jeremy_k 3 days ago | 2 comments
Finite Field Assembly: A Language for Emulating GPUs on CPU (leetarxiv.substack.com)
FF-asm is a programming language founded on the thesis: Math is mostly invented, rarely discovered.
Programming Languages, GPU Emulation, Computer Architecture, Mathematics
28 points by muragekibicho 4 days ago | 19 comments
Data evolution with set-theoretic types (dashbit.co)
Recently I have been working on projects that integrate Elixir with native code in C and Rust. One of the Rust libraries defines the following struct (with fields removed for simplicity):
Programming Languages, Data Structures, Elixir, Rust
91 points by josevalim 4 days ago | 26 comments
Programming in Lua (first edition) (2003) (lua.org)
This is the online version of the first edition of the book Programming in Lua, a detailed and authoritative introduction to all aspects of Lua programming written by Lua's chief architect.
Programming Languages, Lua, Books, Computer Science
74 points by rednafi 5 days ago | 61 comments
Pharo (pharo.org)
Pharo is a pure object-oriented programming language and a powerful environment, focused on simplicity and immediate feedback (think IDE and OS rolled into one).
Object-Oriented Programming, Programming Languages, Software Development, IDEs
51 points by TheFreim 5 days ago | 10 comments
Great things about Rust that aren't just performance (ntietz.com)
Nearly every line of code I write for fun is in Rust. It's not because I need great performance, though that's a nice benefit. I write a lot of Rust because it's a joy to write code in. There is so much else to love about Rust beyond going fast without segfaults.
Programming Languages, Developer Experience
194 points by vortex_ape 5 days ago | 228 comments
Misty: A secure distributed actor language (mistysystem.com)
Public Domain 2025 Douglas Crockford
Programming Languages, Distributed Systems, Security, Public Domain
87 points by m90 6 days ago | 38 comments
Why I Chose Common Lisp (djhaskin.com)
After ~7 years, I was done with Clojure. I was writing a some CLI apps, and I hated how long they took to start up. The community at large seemed not to care about this problem, except for the babashka folks. However, I spent long, hard hours banging my head against native-image and it just wasn't working out. It was incredibly painful, and at the end of it, I still didn't have standalone, fast-starting native executables.
Programming Languages, Clojure, Common Lisp, Performance, CLI
363 points by djha-skin 6 days ago | 189 comments
Obvious things C should do (digitalmars.com)
Standard C undergoes regular improvements, now at C23. But there are baffling things that have not been fixed at all. The Dlang community embedded a C compiler in the D programming language compiler so it could compile C. This C compiler (aka ImportC) was built from scratch. It provided the opportunity to use modern compiler technology to fix those shortcomings. Why doesn’t Standard C fix them?
Programming Languages, C, Compiler Design
254 points by LorenDB 6 days ago | 298 comments
Statum: Zero-Boilerplate Compile-Time State Machines in Rust (github.com/eboody)
Statum is a zero-boilerplate library for finite-state machines in Rust, with compile-time state transition validation.
Rust, State Machines, Compile-Time, Libraries, Programming Languages
23 points by eboody 6 days ago | 4 comments
KEON is a human-readable Serde format that is syntactically similar to Rust (github.com/eternal-io)
KEON is a human readable object notation / serialization format that syntactic similar to Rust and completely supports Serde's data model.
Rust, Data Serialization, Programming Languages, Software, Open Source
44 points by eternal-io 6 days ago | 28 comments
A Closed and Common Lisp (2021) (flooey.org)
I just recently finished up Advent of Code for 2021, and, like last year, I did it in a new-to-me language. This year’s choice was Common Lisp. My total previous exposure to Lisp was a couple weeks writing Scheme in my Programming Languages class at university, so it was almost entirely a novel experience.
Programming Languages, Common Lisp
7 points by AlexeyBrin 7 days ago | 0 comments
Python is the new Basic (schemescape.com)
As far as programming languages go, BASIC ("Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code") is... not a language I would choose today.
Programming Languages, Python, History
31 points by AlexeyBrin 7 days ago | 85 comments
MessagePack: It's like JSON, but fast and small. (msgpack.org)
MessagePack is an efficient binary serialization format. It lets you exchange data among multiple languages like JSON. But it's faster and smaller. Small integers are encoded into a single byte, and typical short strings require only one extra byte in addition to the strings themselves.
Serialization, Data Exchange, Programming Languages, Performance
101 points by davikr 7 days ago | 70 comments
The Macros module is a fictitious module used to document macros (crystal-lang.org)
The Macros module is a fictitious module used to document macros and macro methods.
Programming Languages, Documentation, Crystal Language
12 points by benatkin 7 days ago | 3 comments
Glicol: Next-generation computer music language (glicol.org)
Music, Programming Languages, Software, Open Source
142 points by Bluestein 7 days ago | 18 comments
Flattening ASTs and other compiler data structures (2023) (cs.cornell.edu)
Arenas, a.k.a. regions, are everywhere in modern language implementations. One form of arenas is both super simple and surprisingly effective for compilers and compiler-like things. Maybe because of its simplicity, I haven’t seen the basic technique in many compiler courses—or anywhere else in a CS curriculum for that matter. This post is an introduction to the idea and its many virtues.
Compiler Optimization, Data Structures, Computer Science, Programming Languages
157 points by aw1621107 7 days ago | 46 comments
My Thoughts on Kotlin: Perspectives after 4 years (tylerrussell.dev)
Often, when explaining to other devs that Masset uses Kotlin as our primary backend language, I receive inquisitive and questioning faces. “The Android language? On your backend? That seems odd… Have you considered rewriting it in Rust?” 🤨 
Programming Languages, Kotlin, Backend Development
19 points by terussell85 7 days ago | 11 comments
A Racket alternative to HTML Tidy (joeldueck.com)
If you use Racket to generate web pages, you should use this package to make your HTML both readable and correct. Why go to the trouble of designing clean, semantic markup if you’re just going to slap it all on one line that scrolls horizontally forever?
Web Development, Programming Languages, HTML, Racket
35 points by velcrovan 7 days ago | 9 comments
Show HN: Python with do..end in place of strict indentation (github.com/navxio)
An experimental Python preprocessor that enables do..end syntax in place of strict indentation
Python, Programming Languages, Syntax, Preprocessors
12 points by humility 7 days ago | 68 comments
The Siren Song of Little Languages (wilfred.me.uk)
Some programming languages languish due to obscurity. They lack breathless blog posts exclaiming how much nicer they are to use.
Programming Languages, Software, Design
50 points by Qem 7 days ago | 25 comments
"Why learning the C language is still a good idea" by Antirez (youtube.com)
C Programming, Programming Languages, Software Development
30 points by tolarianwiz 8 days ago | 1 comments
SBCL 2.5.0 (2024) (sbcl.org)
New SBCL versions are usually released at the end of each month: check the Sourceforge File List to see the current version. The new features of the two most recent SBCL releases are listed below.
Software, New Releases, Programming Languages
8 points by Tomte 8 days ago | 0 comments
Go is a well designed language, actually (mattjhall.co.uk)
In many ways 2009 decided my future career. I was thirteen and had just scored my first goal in a competitive football match - a lovely one-two with the winger finished by a powerful strike into the top left corner. Sadly the talent scouts were missing that day. Whilst I was dreaming of Wembley, Go was announced to the world.
Programming Languages, Go, Personal Anecdotes
10 points by p4ul 8 days ago | 9 comments