
V Playground - revskill
https://vlang.io/play
======
wokwokwok
How do I get the compiler?

...or is this supposed to be the future of programming languages, compiler-as-
a-service where you get a playground but not an actual compiler?

~~~
Matheus28

      Free: Limited to 1k lines of code
      Hobbyist ($29.99/user): Unlimited lines of code, no warning messages
      Pro ($99.99/user): Warning messages
      Enterprise (Contact us): Link to libraries

~~~
wokwokwok
Huh.

I thought the days when anyone seriously toyed with the idea that you could
build a business selling a programming language (or perhaps compiler
implementation?) were gone.

Oh well, some interest -> zero interest, but hey, best of luck to them~

~~~
amedvednikov
Please tell me you are not serious :)

~~~
coldtea
They are not, and they're not helpful either.

At least officially, the idea announced was that the language will be
available (and open source) later in the summer.

Hopefully this goes well, as the language makes some big promises that make it
sound like vaporware, but at least we do have a playground accepting the
syntax now.

~~~
wokwokwok
I’m not sure what you mean.

I’m 100% serious; that’s a business model with no value in it, and they few
vendors who have tried it in the past are all fading into obvilion.

Getting adoption of a language is hard enough as it is (see the slow uptake of
say, kotlin despite large scale corporate backing) making it a pay-to-use is
just a dead end.

How are you going to sustain the user growth for a paid product when better or
equivalent free alternatives exist? How will you build an ecosystem when the
core product is paid-to-use? If I’m paying to make something, I’m not giving
it away for free. Not only that, it’s a proven failed business model see
Borland for example. The few vendors that remain are for embedded devices.

There are so many thing wrong with the idea it’s hard to know where to even
start enumerating them.

/shrug

> They are not, and they're not helpful either.

...but please, don’t try to put words in my mouth, that’s just offensive.

I am completely serious, and was in my previous comment too.

~~~
amedvednikov
The comment you replied to was sarcasm. The language is free.

------
nathcd
I realized the other day that the V author is the same person that created
gitly, which was a really nice looking git forge [1]. I believe the author's
stated plan was to open source it, but the website went offline after some
time without an open source release ever happening. I hope the author follows
through on this one, because both projects look(ed) pretty neat!

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13819447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13819447)

~~~
amedvednikov
It will be back, open source, re-written in V:

[http://gitly.org](http://gitly.org)

I started developing Volt/V in the middle of developing gitly.

That's my biggest drawback. I finish 90% of the project, and jump to a
different thing.

I've grown a lot since then, and I'm slowly wrapping up everything.

~~~
rujuladanh
The last 10% is usually the actual 90%.

Claims like C++ translation is definitely one of those 90% things that may
look easy to some people until you actually try to do it.

~~~
fxfan
Please don't lecture people unless you have something to show for it yourself,
specially if it is unsolicited. The author is giving away his work for free,
he owes nobody anything. He is amazingly humble too. You don't like his claims
you are free to not use his product (for free!)

~~~
ModernMech
That's not a lecture, that's a bit of hard-earned advice right there. Anyone
who has embarked on a language project for the first time (as the author is
doing now) learns this one way or another. You get some toy programs compiling
and you think "great! Almost done, now just to implement borrow checking" and
16 months later you have to squint to see the progress you've made. That's
just the reality of it.

~~~
coldtea
Or you just don't implement borrow checking -- which the language doesn't
claim to have.

There are literally dozens of good enough small languages, e.g.: Nim, Zig,
Crystal, Pony, etc etc, and at least the first two were written by a single
person for the most part.

There are many other single-author single-serving languages (used to make
games for example GOOL in Crash Bandicoot etc).

Not saying this can't be vaporware, but it's not beyond comprehension.

Heck, not long ago, a guy (with some psychological issues too) made his own
OS, high level language compiler (HolyC), drivers, UI, and a flight simulator
in assembler and HolyC, all working too (TempleOS).

------
jchw
Very intrigued by this language but the lack of tangible information is
beginning to hurt. I find myself questioning some of the claims and demos
shown on the front page. Like translating C/C++ code? Is the doom3.v thing
completely fake or not?

I'm not sure why it's being presented this way. I'm guessing it's probably
structured this way for sake of Patreon, but it's actually a huge turn off.

~~~
amedvednikov
I've put a lot of information on the home page and the docs.

I'm working on articles about C/C++ translation right now. They will be up in
a couple of days.

What else is hurting you? I'll update the website.

~~~
jchw
It's not that there isn't enough information; it's that there's a lot of
amazing claims and no way for me to evaluate them. Like I'd love to know more
about the supposed C++ translation. The homepage shows an example with
seemingly idiomatic translation, but is that actually representative of what
people could expect?

~~~
rujuladanh
The GitHub issue about the playground says C++ translation is "not coming
soon".

So the claimed C/C++ translation looks misleading.

~~~
amedvednikov
C++ translation will be done by the time the language is open sourced. I can
already compile simpler projects.

~~~
rujuladanh
Any non-trivial C++ program typically uses the STL or a similar library, which
requires the full expressiveness of C++ to be implemented.

So, no, I don't think you have done even a tiny fraction of what C++ entails.

~~~
amedvednikov
I support STL and even plan to support Boost.

~~~
rujuladanh
That does not make sense. Either you support both because you can translate
most C++, or you don't support any (modulo bugs).

Maybe you are hardcoding detection of a set of known types by hand?

------
huntaub
Of the small amount that I've seen, this is the language that I wish Go were.
Obviously, much of the benefit of Go is the standard library coming with
"batteries included", so I'm interested to see how this develops over the next
few years.

~~~
amedvednikov
I believe in a strong standard library too.

For example, V has a powerful graphics library that can be used for writing
2D/3D games and all kinds of hardware accelerated apps.

Volt for Linux uses it, so does the vid editor.

------
ilovecaching
Just so everyone is aware, this is more of a toy language that the author
makes considerably bold claims about. His benchmarks exaggerate by comparing
the speed of print statements, and the language itself is essentially a
transpilation (a direct rule based conversion without an AST) to x86 so no
other platforms can be supported. He has of yet to actually release any source
code so this is just based off of the comments of his I’ve tracked down. If
you’re familiar with the author of Iris in Go, this guy is basically that but
for a programming language.

~~~
yeukhon
If this is thr case, this post should be flagged for misinformation.

~~~
ilovecaching
It’s intentionally misleading. He might not be outright lying, but he is
either too ignorant or intentionally leaving out that his compiler is
essentially just a front end with no back end.

~~~
amedvednikov
The only one misleading here is you.

~~~
ilovecaching
Then show us your source code. Explain how your compiler works. Your website
has zero information outside of your front end targets.

~~~
coldtea
Like all projects that say "we will release soon".

Your point being? Even if he's misleading people, people can always JUDGE by
themselves and not give him money.

(As if he gets anything -- even established projects with tons of supporters
and huge communities hardly make $1000/month on donations).

------
bitt
This is interesting! I am looking forward to the open source release. Some of
the projects built with V also appear to be quite nice. The author has put a
lot of effort into this it seems.

~~~
amedvednikov
Thanks! I have indeed :)

------
amedvednikov
Hi,

Developer here!

Happy to answer all questions.

~~~
hu3
Just wanted to say that if you really made a new programming language, don't
let perfectionism or other's requests get in the way of publishing it.

Even if it is half done and it doesn't fill many of the claims you might have
made, push it online to github when the day comes. Inevitably some people will
throw stones at you for not meeting their expectations and even you might be
harsh on yourself but still push it online. There will be some of us who will
be supportive and try to help the project according to your vision regardless
if it is launched full of bugs, incomplete and with problematic or missing
features.

Also, if the language never really existed and it was a fluke, I personally
forgive you in advance, hope you find peace and wish you the best in life.

~~~
amedvednikov
How can it never exist if there's an online playground? :thinking:

I will release it in June without delays, that's the plan. Whatever state it
is in.

------
rqs
But why use `go` keyword for go-style routine?

I just realized I maybe have answered my own question but I don't think even
Go should use `go` keyword for that.

Maybe give it a more technical name?

~~~
amedvednikov
Maybe :) Suggestions?

~~~
rqs
Since it's a type of coroutine, maybe `co`? also as in "co-pilot".

I'm not very confident about it :(

------
piinbinary
Ironically, the link in the "Found an error/typo? Please submit a pull
request." part of the docs leads to a 404 (is the repo private?)

~~~
amedvednikov
I moved the website to a different repo, need to update that link.

------
mastrsushi
Does V compile directly to native machine code? Or is this just some scripting
language that trans-compiles to C.

~~~
amedvednikov
I've added a link to the home page, it explains everything with lots of
details:

[https://vlang.io](https://vlang.io)

~~~
mastrsushi
Which I read, one part says it compiles to native machine code, another says
it emits C for optimization, so which is it?

And if it does compile to machine code, is it really running as fast as C as
you claim? Or did you just say that because it trans-compiles to C.

~~~
wilonth
It has 2 modes, one for debug (compile directly to machine code) and one for
release (compile to c)

~~~
mastrsushi
So in other words the released version is just a V to C writer? That sounds
less like a language compiler and more like a glorified string converter.

------
sheeshkebab
neat idea, but seems like vaporware, mosty

------
arthurcolle
Fibonacci with memoization breaks at 48

Clearly this advanced language is too much to handle for mere mortals like
myself.

~~~
amedvednikov
All examples work. Something may go wrong. It's pre-alpha software. No need to
be so edgy.

~~~
arthurcolle
Try the Fibonacci with memoization example, changing MAX to 55. Still work for
you?

~~~
amedvednikov
Yes, that breaks it. Integer overflows are not handled right now.

This is an important bug and will be fixed asap.

~~~
hu3
Don't let this stop you from releasing. Others can help fix it.

------
melling
Type inference and immutability by default took way too long to become
mainstream.

------
platz
how is it like go, but has no GC?

