5 ms·

The V Programming Language

22 points by klaussilveira 1y ago

anilgulecha 1y ago
IMO, vlang hasn't had the best of showcases and impressions (perhaps due to over-promising or hyping) set in HN. But it keeps coming up. I think it's worth re-looking at it anew - it brings a good collection of ideas in PL space.
- pwdisswordfishz 1y ago
  There are much better designed languages in this niche, that aren't developed by fraudsters.
  - emptysongglass 1y ago
    Can you elaborate on both points?
    - andrewflnr 1y ago
      Check the "previous discussions" link dump. :)
      - lagniappe 1y ago
        Man I got shit to do
        andrewflnr 1y ago
        Fair, feel free to ignore V entirely then.
  - zamalek 1y ago
    A ton of these new system languages can't seem to let go of exceptions (and/or null), which is increasingly being shown to be bad design. I would wager good money that a significant majority of those who disagree have not used exceptionless languages in anger. Personally, I would learn any of them for a job - but not for joy. Exceptions subtract joy. V is definitely worth looking at (but I have found the time yet).
  - baranul 1y ago
    [flagged]
desireco42 1y ago
OK since nobody is commenting... my first impression. Homepage is old fashioned, I loved := Pascal assignment, didn't love {} curly braces... why do we need those. I went through few code examples and they were very clean, probably would be good to show more on homepage. I will spend more time learning about your goals and such, which is what would help me understand it better.
- desireco42 1y ago
  I asked Gemini to summarize advantages and it did decent job: Based on the information from the V programming language website, here is a summary of its key benefits and advantages: Simplicity and Maintainability: V is designed with a small number of keywords, making it easy to learn, often in a single weekend. This simplicity leads to readable and maintainable code. Safety: The language incorporates several safety features, including bounds checking, mandatory error checks, and a default for immutable variables. It also has no undefined values. Performance: V is a fast, compiled language with minimal memory allocations. It boasts impressive compilation speeds of 80k to 400k lines of code per second. Flexible Memory Management: It offers a default minimal tracing garbage collector, an experimental autofree mode, and the option for manual memory management. Painless Deployment: V compiles applications into a single binary with no external dependencies, which simplifies deployment and allows for easy cross-compilation. Built-in Tools: The language comes with a variety of built-in tools, such as a testing framework, a code profiler, and an automatic documentation generator. Specific Features: Other notable features include hot code reloading for instant changes, a powerful cross-platform graphics library, and a lightweight, cross-platform GUI library (V UI).
- andrewflnr 1y ago
  Be sure to actually run the compiler and check that it actually does what it claims. Let us know how it goes.
  - xigoi 1y ago
    I tried it a few months ago and it generally worked fine, although it had rough edges.
croemer 1y ago
Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403271
johnisgood 1y ago
After the drama, I stopped checking the progress on the language. I think at this point I may stick to C3 only and probably contribute, since it may be the only language that aims to solely improve on C. Odin seemed fine, too, but it seems like it is growing out of the promises of "C replacement". Zig definitely outgrew it a long time ago.
- klaussilveira 1y ago
  Drama?
  - bobajeff 1y ago
    Everytime this is posted someone says it's a vaporware and/or a scam. I've never looked into it myself so i don't know.
    - baranul 1y ago
      A lot of the false accusations and other dirty tactics link back to competitors and bad actors. In many circumstances, people are not getting a balanced view of the situation. Many people use and love V. That's why it has nearly 37,000 stars, over 2,000 forks, and 791 contributors. What's sad, is how the V community and fans are unrelentingly attacked and blanked by rivals. Where from their side, many are just trying to enjoy or develop the language.
  - TUSF 1y ago
    I'm not who you were asking, but my only experiences with vlang was years ago when its marketing was making false claims about what its capabilities were, while pretending to be an already production-ready language. This in turn harbored tons of distrust about any of its promises of future capabilities too. At this point, I don't think it matters if the V programming language has actually fixed all of those issues and its marketing is completely truthful now. The language's perception is tainted, and it'll take a herculean effort to fix that.
    - deleted 1y ago
johnisgood 1y ago
In the last submission, someone said "> With the exception of Go, every language that has become popular in the past 10 years, built on something else.", which is funny, because Factor has such an extensive set of libraries from just ~4 active developers. Sure, it an old language now, but if you check the commit history, you can see that MANY of these libraries have been developed by one guy (lead dev of Swift for a while now) only. I was surprised at how extensive it really is. More so than Go. Now imagine it actually had more developers and a much more active and vibrant community. :P https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/basis/ https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/basis/ https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/core https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/core https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/extra https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/extra Heck, they even implemented CBOR: https://github.com/factor/factor/blob/master/basis/cbor/cbor.factor https://github.com/factor/factor/blob/master/basis/cbor/cbor.... Look at the code, seems elegant and simple, IMO.
- riffraff 1y ago
  to be fair, Slava Pestov appears to be one of those legendary 100x programmers, or perhaps a pseudonym for a group like Nicolas Bourbaki, or some form of non-human being.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    I agree. I remember his talk on Factor. I wish people gave enough support back then so he could work on it full-time. Here is his talk on Factor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g, back from 2008.
- jerf 1y ago
  I'm not sure what point you intend, since Factor has never been popular. No offense intended to the authors and no shade intended, but I think that's pretty clearly the case. There are other not-popular languages that build up from scratch. I'd hesitate to go too crazy in assigning causality to this particular characteristic. Being stuck to an existing ecosystem has disadvantages too. But it's not a counterexample to the statement you quoted.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
baranul 1y ago
Some relatively recent reviews, in English. Lots of good reviews in other languages (Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, French) as well. Keep in mind that V is still in beta. These are from fair and neutral parties: [1] Between Rust and Go, I Choose V (William Elimbi) https://elimbi.com/posts/rust-vs-go-vs-v/ https://elimbi.com/posts/rust-vs-go-vs-v/ [2] V Language: Simplicity Made Sexy (Hash Back) https://medium.com/@connect.hashblock/v-language-simplicity-made-sexy-63f50b28b33c https://medium.com/@connect.hashblock/v-language-simplicity-... [3] About V (V S01E01 Intro - from Antono2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_voaf4Qw4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_voaf4Qw4w [4] My foray into V (from Go developer) https://kristun.dev/posts/my-foray-into-vlang/ https://kristun.dev/posts/my-foray-into-vlang/
lifthrasiir 1y ago
My last comment about V [1] still applies today: V is now well past its infancy with a fancy drama and is a working product, but still seeks to become jack of all trades, that is, too ambitious to be successful. Hopefully it will (and should) change as 1.0 approaches. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304691

22 points by klaussilveira 1y ago

IMO, vlang hasn't had the best of showcases and impressions (perhaps due to over-promising or hyping) set in HN. But it keeps coming up. I think it's worth re-looking at it anew - it brings a good collection of ideas in PL space.

pwdisswordfishz 1y ago
There are much better designed languages in this niche, that aren't developed by fraudsters.
- emptysongglass 1y ago
  Can you elaborate on both points?
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    Check the "previous discussions" link dump. :)
    - lagniappe 1y ago
      Man I got shit to do
      - andrewflnr 1y ago
        Fair, feel free to ignore V entirely then.
- zamalek 1y ago
  A ton of these new system languages can't seem to let go of exceptions (and/or null), which is increasingly being shown to be bad design. I would wager good money that a significant majority of those who disagree have not used exceptionless languages in anger. Personally, I would learn any of them for a job - but not for joy. Exceptions subtract joy. V is definitely worth looking at (but I have found the time yet).
- baranul 1y ago
  [flagged]

desireco42 1y ago

OK since nobody is commenting... my first impression. Homepage is old fashioned, I loved := Pascal assignment, didn't love {} curly braces... why do we need those. I went through few code examples and they were very clean, probably would be good to show more on homepage. I will spend more time learning about your goals and such, which is what would help me understand it better.

desireco42 1y ago
I asked Gemini to summarize advantages and it did decent job: Based on the information from the V programming language website, here is a summary of its key benefits and advantages: Simplicity and Maintainability: V is designed with a small number of keywords, making it easy to learn, often in a single weekend. This simplicity leads to readable and maintainable code. Safety: The language incorporates several safety features, including bounds checking, mandatory error checks, and a default for immutable variables. It also has no undefined values. Performance: V is a fast, compiled language with minimal memory allocations. It boasts impressive compilation speeds of 80k to 400k lines of code per second. Flexible Memory Management: It offers a default minimal tracing garbage collector, an experimental autofree mode, and the option for manual memory management. Painless Deployment: V compiles applications into a single binary with no external dependencies, which simplifies deployment and allows for easy cross-compilation. Built-in Tools: The language comes with a variety of built-in tools, such as a testing framework, a code profiler, and an automatic documentation generator. Specific Features: Other notable features include hot code reloading for instant changes, a powerful cross-platform graphics library, and a lightweight, cross-platform GUI library (V UI).
andrewflnr 1y ago
Be sure to actually run the compiler and check that it actually does what it claims. Let us know how it goes.
- xigoi 1y ago
  I tried it a few months ago and it generally worked fine, although it had rough edges.

croemer 1y ago

Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403271

johnisgood 1y ago

After the drama, I stopped checking the progress on the language. I think at this point I may stick to C3 only and probably contribute, since it may be the only language that aims to solely improve on C. Odin seemed fine, too, but it seems like it is growing out of the promises of "C replacement". Zig definitely outgrew it a long time ago.

klaussilveira 1y ago
Drama?
- bobajeff 1y ago
  Everytime this is posted someone says it's a vaporware and/or a scam. I've never looked into it myself so i don't know.
  - baranul 1y ago
    A lot of the false accusations and other dirty tactics link back to competitors and bad actors. In many circumstances, people are not getting a balanced view of the situation. Many people use and love V. That's why it has nearly 37,000 stars, over 2,000 forks, and 791 contributors. What's sad, is how the V community and fans are unrelentingly attacked and blanked by rivals. Where from their side, many are just trying to enjoy or develop the language.
- TUSF 1y ago
  I'm not who you were asking, but my only experiences with vlang was years ago when its marketing was making false claims about what its capabilities were, while pretending to be an already production-ready language. This in turn harbored tons of distrust about any of its promises of future capabilities too. At this point, I don't think it matters if the V programming language has actually fixed all of those issues and its marketing is completely truthful now. The language's perception is tainted, and it'll take a herculean effort to fix that.
  - deleted 1y ago

johnisgood 1y ago

In the last submission, someone said "> With the exception of Go, every language that has become popular in the past 10 years, built on something else.", which is funny, because Factor has such an extensive set of libraries from just ~4 active developers. Sure, it an old language now, but if you check the commit history, you can see that MANY of these libraries have been developed by one guy (lead dev of Swift for a while now) only. I was surprised at how extensive it really is. More so than Go. Now imagine it actually had more developers and a much more active and vibrant community. :P https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/basis/ https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/basis/ https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/core https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/core https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/extra https://github.com/factor/factor/tree/master/extra Heck, they even implemented CBOR: https://github.com/factor/factor/blob/master/basis/cbor/cbor.factor https://github.com/factor/factor/blob/master/basis/cbor/cbor.... Look at the code, seems elegant and simple, IMO.

riffraff 1y ago
to be fair, Slava Pestov appears to be one of those legendary 100x programmers, or perhaps a pseudonym for a group like Nicolas Bourbaki, or some form of non-human being.
- johnisgood 1y ago
  I agree. I remember his talk on Factor. I wish people gave enough support back then so he could work on it full-time. Here is his talk on Factor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g, back from 2008.
jerf 1y ago
I'm not sure what point you intend, since Factor has never been popular. No offense intended to the authors and no shade intended, but I think that's pretty clearly the case. There are other not-popular languages that build up from scratch. I'd hesitate to go too crazy in assigning causality to this particular characteristic. Being stuck to an existing ecosystem has disadvantages too. But it's not a counterexample to the statement you quoted.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

baranul 1y ago

Some relatively recent reviews, in English. Lots of good reviews in other languages (Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, French) as well. Keep in mind that V is still in beta. These are from fair and neutral parties: [1] Between Rust and Go, I Choose V (William Elimbi) https://elimbi.com/posts/rust-vs-go-vs-v/ https://elimbi.com/posts/rust-vs-go-vs-v/ [2] V Language: Simplicity Made Sexy (Hash Back) https://medium.com/@connect.hashblock/v-language-simplicity-made-sexy-63f50b28b33c https://medium.com/@connect.hashblock/v-language-simplicity-... [3] About V (V S01E01 Intro - from Antono2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_voaf4Qw4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_voaf4Qw4w [4] My foray into V (from Go developer) https://kristun.dev/posts/my-foray-into-vlang/ https://kristun.dev/posts/my-foray-into-vlang/

lifthrasiir 1y ago

My last comment about V [1] still applies today: V is now well past its infancy with a fancy drama and is a working product, but still seeks to become jack of all trades, that is, too ambitious to be successful. Hopefully it will (and should) change as 1.0 approaches. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304691