A small update on Nore: first public release and thanks
A while ago I posted here asking for feedback on Nore, a language idea I've been exploring around data-oriented design.
At that point, one of the main things I was unsure about was whether the idea was actually strong enough to carry a real compiler project, or whether it mostly sounded interesting in theory. The feedback I got here helped me keep pushing on that question instead of backing away from it.
So I wanted to post a small follow-up and say thanks: I've now published the first public release, v0.1.0.
If anyone wants to take a look, the repo is here: Nore
Since that first post, a big part of the work has gone into two things:
- building a small standard library from scratch
- getting the language self-hosted
When I first posted, there really wasn't a stdlib yet. I've tried to keep it intentionally small so the language has to carry its own weight, instead of hiding weak spots behind a large library too early.
The self-hosting part mattered even more to me. My earlier post was mostly about whether this fairly opinionated language model could really express a non-trivial systems project. Getting Nore to the point where it can implement its own compiler feels like the first meaningful validation that the core idea is worth continuing.
A lot of the suggestions from that first discussion were genuinely useful, and I've kept track of them. But this release hasn't really started addressing most of those bigger future ideas yet. I felt it was more important first to get Nore into a somewhat more stable state before taking on more ambitious work.
I definitely don't see this as "the language is done" or anything close to that. There's still a lot to improve in the language, tooling, stdlib, and general ergonomics. But it does feel like an important milestone, and I honestly don't think I would have pushed it this far without the feedback I got here.
So mostly: thanks. This community helped me turn a language idea I wasn't fully sure about into a first public release I feel good enough about to share.
And if anyone wants to take a look, I'd still love feedback, especially on:
- the data-oriented design direction itself
- whether self-hosting changes how convincing the language feels