The V Programming Language (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

65 pointsarchivist16y ago24 comments

24 comments

dang6y ago

There have been a bunch of threads about this in the past year:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229632

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403271

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20258485

archivist1OP6y ago

I guess the paradox of killing them all so quickly is it's unlikely the signal of poor quality propagates widely

first time I saw it was today and I thought it looked cool.

I think name and shame, street parade the criminal would be a good moderation idea. don't just highlight the best, highlight the worst. it helps reinforce standards

never seen a forum do that tho. it's always about the most liked

but in society we also know the most hated

1 more reply

raitucarp6y ago

Why someone bump this again?

hawkice6y ago

Those fast compiles, fast speed, plus the feature list (standard generics and hot code reloading) make this look insanely cool! What's the secret sauce? The translation from C and compile being 25x faster than just compiling C seems nearly impossible.

Edit: sibling comment points out it may seem amazingly cool and nearly impossible because it does not, in fact, exist. How can we learn more about the feasibility of this living up to their claims?

hippyhippo6y ago

> What's the secret sauce?

Lies.

On a more serious note, compilers and programming languages take years to get into a usable state, and V very much in early stages of development, pre-pre-pre-alpha or similar quality. It is far from usable for any serious work at all. All the listed features are "planned features", many of which are not yet implementd or buggy. In other words, as development progresses, the author of V will realize that it is not easy to design/implement those features properly, otherwise every language would have that.

mstade6y ago

This has been discussed on HN several times before, and as far as I can tell most of the claims have been too good to be true. For a bit more nuanced review, Christine Dodrill has written posts on the topic, with this being the latest: https://christine.website/blog/v-vvork-in-progress-2020-01-0...

IshKebab6y ago

> The translation from C and compile being 25x faster than just compiling C seems nearly impossible.

It's easy to make a language that compiles faster than C. First get rid of the C preprocessor, and fix the syntax so it is easier to parse (e.g. `name: Type` rather than `Type name`). You can go even further and make it possible to parse each line independently (I think Zig does this?).

Second use a simple modern code generator that doesn't do much optimisation.

sagichmal6y ago

This is vaporware bordering on a scam, please don't signal boost it.

https://christine.website/blog/v-vvork-in-progress-2020-01-0...

coldtea6y ago

This is a language in development, which already has code available, compiles, has programs and libs written in it, etc. One could say varpourware back in spring when V was first posted but the repo was closed etc. Not anymore.

But you could say that it overpromises and underdelivers...

DigitalJetsam6y ago

I don't understand why someone would even waste their time writing an article like this.

kgraves6y ago

This is like complaining about a painting that is not finished yet.

The project clearly states that some features are a work in progress (wip)[0]. What happens when this project achieves all those goals? That blog post will become irrelevant.

If this is 'vaporware' why is it open source? We should be happy that this project is now developed in the open and not closed up.

[0] https://vlang.io/

quickthrower26y ago

Just teething problems I reckon par for the course for a new language.

Not honoring monotonic let alone semantic versioning is a bit annoying but oh well.

stefano6y ago

These are not normal teething problems, it's straight up poor poor software and the claims about the supported features are quite simply lies right now. Last time I looked at the compiler, it was basically doing search and replace to generate buggy C code.

1 more reply

fergie6y ago

Came here to ask why this project was at the top of HN with 15k stars on github yet I had never heard of it. Was also wondering just why- the scope, claims and goals of the project make no sense.

1 more reply

blattimwind6y ago

> hellomodule ... hellomodule.o ... hellomodule__print_1_1 ... "cannot import module "mymodule" (not found)" …oh dear. Can someone file this as an issue for me?

Well...

rvz6y ago

A scam on what? Did you pay money for this? Just like any other open-source language, it is a work-in-progress and obviously isn't complete. If it were vapourware, it wouldn't be open-source would it?. ;)

It's nice to keep posting links from authors who are biased against the V project but I don't think you have at least tried the language.

Just like an operating system, a programming language is very difficult in itself to maintain and V seems to be actively maintained. So please signal boost it.

hellofunk6y ago

> There's no garbage collection or reference counting. V cleans everything up during compilation. If your V program compiles, it's guaranteed that it's going to be leak free.

tedzhu6y ago

I don't quite understand, what is guaranteeing it's leak free?

jb19916y ago

Exactly.

DigitalJetsam6y ago

> Simplicity: the language can be learned in less than an hour

> Built-in ORM

Chortle

lbj6y ago

Looks close to Crystal but very much a work in progress

quickthrower26y ago

But can it run Doom? Yes.

Proof for those clicking the small triangular: https://vlang.io/img/doom.png

shakna6y ago

> The doom example is still only one file that doesn’t even compile anymore. [0]

Seems that it can _sometimes_ do Doom.

[0] https://christine.website/blog/v-vvork-in-progress-2020-01-0...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

24 comments

dang6y ago

There have been a bunch of threads about this in the past year:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229632

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403271

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20258485

archivist1OP6y ago

I guess the paradox of killing them all so quickly is it's unlikely the signal of poor quality propagates widely

first time I saw it was today and I thought it looked cool.

I think name and shame, street parade the criminal would be a good moderation idea. don't just highlight the best, highlight the worst. it helps reinforce standards

never seen a forum do that tho. it's always about the most liked

but in society we also know the most hated

1 more reply

raitucarp6y ago

Why someone bump this again?

hawkice6y ago

Edit: sibling comment points out it may seem amazingly cool and nearly impossible because it does not, in fact, exist. How can we learn more about the feasibility of this living up to their claims?

hippyhippo6y ago

> What's the secret sauce?

Lies.

mstade6y ago

IshKebab6y ago

> The translation from C and compile being 25x faster than just compiling C seems nearly impossible.

Second use a simple modern code generator that doesn't do much optimisation.

sagichmal6y ago

This is vaporware bordering on a scam, please don't signal boost it.

https://christine.website/blog/v-vvork-in-progress-2020-01-0...

coldtea6y ago

But you could say that it overpromises and underdelivers...

DigitalJetsam6y ago

I don't understand why someone would even waste their time writing an article like this.

kgraves6y ago

This is like complaining about a painting that is not finished yet.

The project clearly states that some features are a work in progress (wip)[0]. What happens when this project achieves all those goals? That blog post will become irrelevant.

If this is 'vaporware' why is it open source? We should be happy that this project is now developed in the open and not closed up.

[0] https://vlang.io/

quickthrower26y ago

Just teething problems I reckon par for the course for a new language.

Not honoring monotonic let alone semantic versioning is a bit annoying but oh well.

stefano6y ago

1 more reply

fergie6y ago

Came here to ask why this project was at the top of HN with 15k stars on github yet I had never heard of it. Was also wondering just why- the scope, claims and goals of the project make no sense.

1 more reply

blattimwind6y ago

> hellomodule ... hellomodule.o ... hellomodule__print_1_1 ... "cannot import module "mymodule" (not found)" …oh dear. Can someone file this as an issue for me?

Well...

rvz6y ago

It's nice to keep posting links from authors who are biased against the V project but I don't think you have at least tried the language.

Just like an operating system, a programming language is very difficult in itself to maintain and V seems to be actively maintained. So please signal boost it.

hellofunk6y ago

> There's no garbage collection or reference counting. V cleans everything up during compilation. If your V program compiles, it's guaranteed that it's going to be leak free.

tedzhu6y ago

I don't quite understand, what is guaranteeing it's leak free?

jb19916y ago

Exactly.

DigitalJetsam6y ago

> Simplicity: the language can be learned in less than an hour

> Built-in ORM

Chortle

lbj6y ago

Looks close to Crystal but very much a work in progress

quickthrower26y ago

But can it run Doom? Yes.

Proof for those clicking the small triangular: https://vlang.io/img/doom.png

shakna6y ago

> The doom example is still only one file that doesn’t even compile anymore. [0]

Seems that it can _sometimes_ do Doom.

[0] https://christine.website/blog/v-vvork-in-progress-2020-01-0...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse