Fresh Hacker News | Show HN: I made a Clojure-like language in Go, boots in 7ms

▲Show HN: I made a Clojure-like language in Go, boots in 7ms(github.com)

169 points by marcingas 15 hours ago | 16 comments

▲veqq 6 hours ago

Nice! I recently played around with a Lisp syntax for Go semantics: https://codeberg.org/veqq/Joe

As far as JVM-free Clojure-like, Janet is really nice. I've been using it in production for a while: https://janet-lang.org/ There's also Fennel if you want the Lua vm and libraries.

▲marcingas 6 hours ago

Thanks! Joe looks good! As for Janet - never tried it myself but I always thought it's doing its own thing instead of trying to be Clojure.

▲TJSomething 3 hours ago

While Janet pulls from a few inspirations, the syntax is pure Clojure. I always figured that it was trying fix up the bumpy parts in Fennel to enable a programming style that was more consistently Clojure-like and functional than could be done in Fennel, since Fennel ultimately has to use Lua's semantics because Fennel compiles to Lua.

▲ 2 hours ago

▲ingy 10 hours ago

Try out this Wasm browser REPL https://gloathub.org/repl/

Gloat is a Glojure AOT automation tool. I worked with James Hamlin to get Glojure AOT going last summer and have been moving it forward since. I've also been working with marcingas (nooga) to get Gloat/Glojure/let-go all cooperating.

▲boguscoder 6 hours ago

Micro nit: it says 7ms cold start and then 6ms just few lines lower.. maybe it gets faster as you read README

▲bjconlan 10 hours ago

This is the kind of clojure port that I always was looking for. Mostly because I thought go's core library and channels abstractions hits a simpler/nicer base API which would with the core & async apis (not to mention scratches my big beautiful binary itch)

Thanks for your work will definitely check it out again once I get over renewed love for cpp (26)

Edit how did glojure go under my radar also a great project from the looks

▲giancarlostoro 10 hours ago

I have played with the idea of making a “old school PHP” style DSL that takes advantage of the Go runtime and packages under the cover. I say old school PHP because PHP used to be a web focused DSL its no longer the case, I feel like it would make for an interesting easy to use backend language similar to PHP but with the full power of Go behind it. Clojure is an excellent choice.

▲marcingas 10 hours ago

Thanks for kind words! Please don't forget to drop me an issue or two when you eventually get to it :)

▲lenkite 1 hour ago

I wish this had a better language name than just "lets-go". How about "clogo" ?

▲lsh0 5 hours ago

An alternative is Joker: https://joker-lang.org

I think it is brilliant and completely underappreciated :)

▲achenet 1 hour ago

This is beautiful, makes me wish I'd made it.

Excellent work, thank you for sharing it with us ^_^

▲chr15m 10 hours ago

PR most welcome for https://github.com/chr15m/awesome-clojure-likes

▲marcingas 9 hours ago

Added https://github.com/chr15m/awesome-clojure-likes/pull/27 Thanks for letting me know :)

▲faangguyindia 7 hours ago

I am finding i need "Rails" but i like single binary deployment of Go and fast/low resource usage like Go.

Is it possible for now?

▲marcingas 7 hours ago

I think you could make a framework on top of this. It doesn't yet run unmodified Clojure libs like hiccup but it wouldn't be hard to roll something relatively simple and solid in let-go. IMO

▲dmitrygr 11 hours ago

You should see how fast libc gets mmaped() into the VM and the first instr runs :)

▲marcingas 11 hours ago

Sure, I should clarify: The 7ms here is measured at the point where let-go starts executing user code. It takes 7ms to initialize the compiler, load all stdlib namespaces and compute all vars. So it's not "time to first instruction", it's "time to running your code".

▲brazukadev 11 hours ago

do you know about Glojure?

https://github.com/glojurelang/glojure

▲marcingas 10 hours ago

Yes, I know about this one. I'm even comparing against it in my benchmarks :)

▲rcarmo 6 hours ago

You need to update the go-joker numbers, I removed the GIL yesterday or so and did some changes to the IR. ;)

▲marcingas 6 hours ago

I think I've pulled the latest today but will double-check and update them again tomorrow. I'm still puzzled why it doesn't run the tak function. Btw. Have you tried running my benches? I'm very curious about your results!

▲ingy 10 hours ago

https://github.com/gloathub/glojure is the actively maintained fork.

▲ 5 hours ago

▲ 10 hours ago

▲j3s 8 hours ago

absolutely sick of reading through obviously AI-slopped READMEs. it's your project, take a little pride and tell me why i should like it quickly instead of asking your agent to rattle off a list of features -- it's severely boring & offputting.

▲marcingas 8 hours ago

Thanks for feedback. Here's a pre-AI-slopped README https://github.com/nooga/let-go/blob/98c2e2ebf38519bceb4f799...

You can also refer to the HN post itself - it says why I think it's cool.

▲jimbokun 6 hours ago

This version is infinitely better.

▲j3s 8 hours ago

apologies if i was blunt - readme sloppage is a particular annoyance of mine that is quickly becoming common. i'm not against vibecoding, far from it. but a readme is a part of a project that humans immediately touch - seeing it littered with em-dashes signals carelessness.

i appreciate you taking my feedback with grace.

▲rcarmo 6 hours ago

I would like to point out, again, that em dashes are very much used by humans that run macOS or iOS — like in this case.

▲marcingas 8 hours ago

No worries at all. I understand your point. I'll look into fixing this!

▲stingraycharles 8 hours ago

Why did you feel the need to slopify your README? The original version read much, much better.

I genuinely don’t understand why people do this.

▲marcingas 8 hours ago

Good question, perhaps I really was just careless. I'll look into fixing the README.

▲stingraycharles 8 hours ago

It’s all good. Your project is awesome (and I say this as someone who has done Clojure fulltime for 5 years and nowadays write mostly Go).

▲uxcolumbo 1 hour ago

What made you stop using Clojure? Lack of Clojure jobs? Or something else?

▲ 13 hours ago

▲asdfasd323f 10 hours ago

obviously vibecoded

▲marcingas 10 hours ago

Yes, I have used AI to boost Clojure compat and fill out some blanks but the runtime itself is not vibecoded. I wrote it myself between Jan 2021 and July 2023. All commits on GH.

▲jeremyjh 9 hours ago

Did you even look at the repo history? Clearly it blasted off this year that way but that isn't how it started. Probably he got way more into it once he could make faster progress on all the yak shaving required to make it more useful.

▲marcingas 8 hours ago

Yeah, pretty much. I abandoned it in 2023 due to lack of time. At this point it had enough lift for solving AoC problems and writing small scripts. I've recently dusted it off and did the boring parts of the "roadmap" with Claude.

▲asdfasd323f 9 hours ago

I did. And it looks like you did too. Which is why you answered your own question in the second half of your comment, quite amusingly. "Probably" LOL!

▲jeremyjh 8 hours ago

So...you didn't ?

https://github.com/nooga/let-go/tree/d9dc094822b2983ebf44604...

In 2023 he had a working Clojure compiler with:

Macros with syntax quote, Reader conditionals, Destructuring, Multi-arity functions, Atoms, channels & go-blocks a'la core.async, Regular expressions (the Go flavor), Simple json, http and os namespaces, Many functions ported from clojure.core, REPL with syntax-highlighting and completions, Simple nREPL server that seems to work with BetterThanTomorrow/calva,

▲blanched 9 hours ago

You made an account just to post this low effort “criticism”? What’s the point?

▲asdfasd323f 9 hours ago

[flagged]

▲adi_kurian 9 hours ago

Is it bad? Did you try it?

▲asdfasd323f 9 hours ago

The readme clearly has abundant emdashes and emojis everywhere, the code itself is obviously vibed. Not really sure what you're objecting to, to be honest.

▲marcingas 9 hours ago

Yeah, it has em dashes alright. But the emojis you're referring to were committed in January 2023 (0c4925c). But that's besides the point I guess. What is your point?