Hacker News with Generative AI: Programming Languages

Zig is a general-purpose programming language (ziglang.org)
Zig is a general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal and reusable software.

Programming Languages, Software Development, Toolchains

3 points by doener 14 hours ago | 0 comments

Swift Achieved Dynamic Linking Where Rust Couldn't (faultlore.com)
For those who don’t follow Swift’s development, ABI stability has been one of its most ambitious projects and possibly it’s defining feature, and it finally shipped in Swift 5. The result is something I find endlessly fascinating, because I think Swift has pushed the notion of ABI stability farther than any language without much compromise.

Programming Languages, Swift, Rust, ABI Stability

24 points by misterdata 15 hours ago | 2 comments

Why F#? (batsov.com)
If someone had told me a few months ago I’d be playing with .NET again after a 15+ years hiatus I probably would have laughed at this.1 Early on in my career I played with .NET and Java, and even though .NET had done some things better than Java (as it had the opportunity to learn from some early Java mistakes), I quickly settled on Java as it was a truly portable environment.

.NET, Programming Languages, Software Development

320 points by bozhidar 18 hours ago | 280 comments

Pidgin 3.0 Experimental 2 (2.91.0) has been released (imfreedom.org)

New Releases, Software, Programming Languages

21 points by rw_grim 1 day ago | 3 comments

Swift 6.1 Released (swift.org)
Swift 6.1 is now available!

New Releases, Programming Languages

10 points by tambourine_man 1 day ago | 0 comments

JEP draft: Prepare to make final mean final (openjdk.org)
Issue warnings about uses of deep reflection to mutate final fields. The warnings aim to prepare developers for a future release that ensures integrity by default by restricting final field mutation; this makes Java programs safer and potentially faster. Application developers can avoid both current warnings and future restrictions by selectively enabling the ability to mutate final fields where essential.

Java, Programming Languages, Security, Software Development, Open Source

203 points by mfiguiere 1 day ago | 118 comments

Show HN: TypeScript as a proof assistant for intuitionistic propositional logic (github.com)
TypeScript can be used just like a proof assistant (for intuitionistic propositional logic)!

TypeScript, Proof Assistants, Logic, Programming Languages, Computer Science

17 points by xxmarijnw 2 days ago | 1 comments

Shadowing in Python gave me an UnboundLocalError (ntietz.com)
There's this thing in Python that always trips me up. It's not that tricky, once you know what you're looking for, but it's not intuitive for me, so I do forget. It's that shadowing a variable can sometimes give you an UnboundLocalError!

Python, Programming Errors, Programming Languages

8 points by todsacerdoti 2 days ago | 3 comments

Python lock files have officially been standardized (python.org)

Python, Programming Languages, Standards, Open Source

36 points by ofek 2 days ago | 17 comments

How to Secure Existing C and C++ Software Without Memory Safety [pdf] (arxiv.org)
The most important security benefit of software memory safety is easy to state: for C and C++ software, attackers can exploit most bugs and vulnerabilities to gain full, unfettered control of software behavior, whereas this is not true for most bugs in memory-safe software.

Security, C++, Programming Languages

130 points by aw1621107 2 days ago | 86 comments

Taming the UB Monsters in C++ (herbsutter.com)
The C++ community broadly has a lot of hardening work well underway.

C++, Programming Languages, Software Development

87 points by ingve 2 days ago | 121 comments

Cross Compiling Swift (khanwinter.com)
There are multiple ways to cross-compile Swift on different platforms. I explored a few methods while building a Discord bot and a Bluesky bot.

Swift, Programming Languages, Cross-Compilation, Discord, Bluesky

3 points by todsacerdoti 2 days ago | 0 comments

The Code That Controls Your Money (wealthsimple.com)
COBOL is a coding language older than Weird Al Yankovic. The people who know how to use it are often just as old. It underpins the entire financial system. And it can’t be removed. How a computer language controls the financial life of the world.

Finance, Programming Languages, Technology, History

21 points by Breadmaker 2 days ago | 2 comments

Why is this site built with C (marcelofern.com)
Learning from these two past mistakes, I came up with a set of requirements for my next (and hopefully final) website:

Programming Languages, Website Development, C

155 points by todsacerdoti 3 days ago | 132 comments

Rust Any part 3: we have upcasts (pocoo.org)
As of Rust 1.86, this is finally fixed. The cast now works:

Rust, Programming Languages, Compiler Design, Software Development, New Features

174 points by jmillikin 3 days ago | 76 comments

Four Lectures on Standard ML (1989) [pdf] (cs.tufts.edu)

Programming Languages, Computer Science, Education, Standard ML

146 points by swatson741 3 days ago | 49 comments

Towards fearless SIMD, 7 years later (linebender.org)
Seven years ago I wrote a blog post Towards fearless SIMD, outlining a vision for Rust as a compelling language for writing fast SIMD programs. Where are we now?

Rust, Programming Languages, SIMD, Performance, History

176 points by raphlinus 3 days ago | 173 comments

Making WebGL typesafe in Idris 2 (drbearhands.com)
I’d wanted to learn Idris for a while, and see how far I could realistically take type-safety. In particular, can I ensure all documentation of the WebGL spec is encompassed in types? (thus achieving correctness-by-construction).

Programming Languages, WebGL, Type Safety

6 points by srid 3 days ago | 0 comments

Memelang: A hybrid graph-relational query language (memelang.net)
Memelang is a hybrid graph-relational query language that encodes complex relationships in a compact syntax.

Query Languages, Databases, Programming Languages

4 points by holtwork 4 days ago | 0 comments

A diagram of C23 basic types (wordpress.com)
This week on the C committee mailing list we had a discussion about how C’s types are organized into different categories. At the end I came up with a diagram with that organization. It basically translates the section “6.2.5 Types” of the C23 standard into a graph of inclusions.

C Programming, Programming Languages, Data Structures, Diagrams, Standards

6 points by ingve 4 days ago | 0 comments

Typed Japanese (github.com/typedgrammar)
If you can write TypeScript, you can understand Japanese!

Programming Languages, TypeScript, Japan, Learning, Open Source

119 points by Philpax 4 days ago | 37 comments

Koto Programming Language (koto.dev)
A lightweight scripting language for Rust applications.

Programming Languages, Rust, Scripting Languages

213 points by virtualritz 4 days ago | 148 comments

Rust is indeed woke (dreamwidth.org)
Hello, you've been (semi-randomly) selected to take a CAPTCHA to validate your requests. Please complete it below and hit the button!

Programming Languages, Opinion, Social Commentary

15 points by pabs3 4 days ago | 2 comments

I Built Faster Reinforcement Learning in C# Solo Than Teams Did with Python (rlmatrix.com)
The question comes relentlessly: “Why build reinforcement learning in C#?” Behind this query lies an unspoken assumption that serious machine learning happens exclusively in Python. This perspective reveals a fundamental disconnect between academic ML researchers with their sprawling Python scripts and those of us solving real industrial problems.

Reinforcement Learning, Programming Languages, C#, Python, Machine Learning

13 points by adriansieradzki 4 days ago | 2 comments

C and C++ prioritize performance over correctness (2023) (swtch.com)
The original ANSI C standard, C89, introduced the concept of “undefined behavior,” which was used both to describe the effect of outright bugs like accessing memory in a freed object and also to capture the fact that existing implementations differed about handling certain aspects of the language, including use of uninitialized values, signed integer overflow, and null pointer handling.

Programming Languages, Software Development, C, C++, Standards

92 points by endorphine 4 days ago | 124 comments

Can jank beat Clojure's error reporting? (jank-lang.org)
Hey folks! I've spent the past quarter working on jank's error messages. I've focused on reaching parity with Clojure's error reporting and improving upon it where possible.

Programming Languages, Clojure, Error Handling, Software Development

11 points by Jeaye 5 days ago | 1 comments

Rust vs. Go in 2025 (bitfieldconsulting.com)
Can I say something without everyone getting mad?

Programming Languages, Rust, Go, Comparisons

8 points by gus_leonel 5 days ago | 0 comments

LLVM Back End for MoonBit (moonbitlang.com)
In the past two years, MoonBit has demonstrated significant performance advantages across WebAssembly, JavaScript, and native backends. We believe that for a new language to be truly valuable, it must offer a generational leap in both core performance and developer experience. Today, we are excited to introduce MoonBit LLVM backend support with 8× the performance of Java in the FFT benchmark, and out-of-the-box debugging.

Programming Languages, Performance, Compilers

24 points by hongbo_zhang 5 days ago | 17 comments

MilliForth-6502: The smallest Forth real programming language for 6502 (github.com/agsb)

Programming Languages, 6502, Forth, Microcontrollers

120 points by rbanffy 5 days ago | 39 comments

Xee: A Modern XPath and XSLT Engine in Rust (startifact.com)
For the last two years I've been working on a programming language implementation in Rust named Xee. Xee stands for "XML Execution Engine" and it supports modern versions of XPath and XSLT. Those are programming languages, and yes, that's XML stuff.

Programming Languages, Rust, XML

378 points by robin_reala 5 days ago | 231 comments