PCpcr910303·Apr 20, 2022Submission
Passerine: A small functional scripting language with macros, powered by Rust
30 points · Open discussionvrtbl
passerine
Rust2020–2022
vrtbl / passerine
passerine
A small extensible programming language designed for concise expression with little code.
5Distinct people
7Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.1KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A small extensible programming language designed for concise expression with little code.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:03:16 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by month7 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2020-12-08 16:11:35 UTC to 2022-04-20 11:43:35 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2020 | 2020-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Jan 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2021 | 2021-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Mar 2021 | 2021-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2021 | 2021-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 2021 | 2021-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 2021 | 2021-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2021 | 2021-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2021 | 2021-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2021 | 2021-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Oct 2021 | 2021-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nov 2021 | 2021-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Dec 2021 | 2021-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2022 | 2022-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2022 | 2022-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2022 | 2022-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
7 sourcesIt's still a long way from being complete, but I'm working on something like that[0]. Eventual plans are to have good Rust library interop (e.g. bindings to hyper for http) while also being able to compile to Wasm (to run on an erlang-style distributed runtime / the browser). The language is currently interpreted, but one I get typechecking working, I should be able to merge in the Wasm codegen backend I'm working on (with eventual plans for LLVM). Current compiler has zero external dependencies.
Language itself could be described as a mix of OCaml, Scheme, and Lua. Currently working on the hygienic procedural macro system and system injection through algebraic effects.
[0]: https://github.com/vrtbl/passerine
In The absurd complexity of server-side renderingTossing my hat in for Passerine [1]. Gorgeous ML inspired syntax. Written in Rust, and I suspect scripting Rust libraries is in the cards.
Dreaming here: Lua is a fantastic scripting language, but the Rust FFI isn’t as ergonomic as it could be. Enter Luster [2], which is basically LuaJIT rewritten in Rust.
Embedding a scripting language in a Rust application gives you tons of power (e.g. scripting Rust structs from Lua [3]), and setting this up isn’t terribly difficult.
[1]: https://github.com/vrtbl/passerine
[2]: https://github.com/kyren/luster
[3]: https://git.sr.ht/~ioiojo/kiwi
In Scripting languages of the futurePasserine[0] uses the latter syntax.
[0]: https://github.com/vrtbl/passerine
In Pen: A programming language for scalable developmentWhat operating system do you have? It seems like your `read` command does not support the `-n` argument - but that's not the point, I really need to work on removing installation friction.
If you have git and cargo installed (needed anyway), you can try:
# project structure
cd ~
mkdir .aspen
cd .aspen
mkdir bin
# download
git clone https://github.com/vrtbl/passerine
git clone https://github.com/vrtbl/aspen
# build
cd aspen
cargo build --release
mv target/release/aspen bin
# source
echo "export PATH="~/.aspen/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.profile
Restart your shell, and it should work. Type `aspen` and hit enter and see if you get a help message with version 0.4.0. If you have any more issues, reach out on the Discord server so we can reach a more permanent solution (if you haven't already).
In Passerine: A small extensible language designed for concise expressionI really like how this has zero dependencies [0]
[0] https://github.com/vrtbl/passerine/blob/master/Cargo.toml
In Passerine: A small extensible language designed for concise expressionShow HN: Passerine – an extensible programming language – v0.8.0 released
22 points · Open discussion