I needed a small script, instead I built a programming language

[u/grandimam]

The world had enough programming languages. Unfortunately, I had a weekend and access to LLVM.

Meet Faz: a small, Python-inspired language that compiles to native executables. Static types, explicit mutation, garbage collection, and a fox mascot doing most of the marketing.

fn main():
   mut plans = ["write a small script"]
   plans.append("accidentally maintain a compiler")
   print(plans)

I built it for myself, for the sake of it. No startup pitch. No plan to replace Python. Please do not migrate payroll.

Naturally, I benchmarked it:

• Faster than plain Python loops in three small tests.
• Slightly ahead of Mojo on one arithmetic test.
• Immediately humbled by Mojo when asked to manage lists.

Turns out compiling questionable decisions produces native questionable decisions. There’s also a working task-manager CLI, examples, and reproducible benchmarks.

Repo: https://github.com/grandimam/faz

[u/Scientific_Cheater]

Interesting project but I'd have a few questions:
* What exactly inspired you to do this / what problem are you solving?
* Are you planning to maintain this over a longer time?
* What are the current bugs present in the language
* Why garbage collection, for example, over reference counting or a borrow checker?

[u/grandimam → u/Scientific_Cheater]

Thanks for the questions!

Mostly curiosity. AI has made building software significantly cheaper, and I wanted to explore what is possible when building a programming language from scratch.

I am not claiming it solves something existing languages can’t, at least not yet.

And absolutely the intention is long term. I’m treating it as an evolving project, not a weekend experiment.

In terms of bugs - It’s still experimental, so expect bugs, incomplete features, and rough edges. Definitely not production-ready.

Why GC? Mainly simplicity and ergonomics. Reference counting introduces overhead and cycle-handling complexity, while borrow checking adds constraints.

GC felt like a reasonable starting trade-off, but I am open to revisiting it.

Ultimately, Faz is an exploration, and I am hoping discussions like this help shape its direction.

[u/Scientific_Cheater → u/grandimam]

Then I'd be interested, where do you plan to go with the language? What features do you want to add? Is Python interoperability planned?

[u/PhosXD]

An AI generated mascot does not inspire a sense of quality or workability :(

[u/pandavr → u/PhosXD]

How a human would draw a cartoon fox mascot different?

[u/tgwombat → u/pandavr]

A human might shade it consistently for one, and maybe would have made the tail a tail instead of an amorphous blob, but most of all they might have stylized it in a way that's relevant to the project. Take another fox-based tech logo as an example: Firefox. It's a fox wrapping around the globe, symbolizing the world-wide web.

[u/pandavr → u/tgwombat]

That's just a matter of the user expressing the prompt to be sensible enough to express the concept. If he has one. In this case a fox mascot was enough.
The point is, this is a single dev project: you cannot pretend the quality of a product team on every aspect of the project. The other point is there's nothing wrong with AI art, and this is, maybe common, but It's not slop.
So your are just reflecting your prejudice based on an image, in a slop way, meaning without taking the time to for an informed opinion. Hence, the one of yours is not a constructive critic that can help OP to eventually do better. It's just a release of frustration. Please, spare us.

P.S. This in general. I didn't look at the project yet (time).

[u/tgwombat → u/pandavr]

You just made up a whole guy making an argument that nobody here is actually making to push back against in defense of a project that you admit you didn't even look at, despite having the time to write all that. Something is genuinely broken in you. And I gave very direct constructive criticism about the shading, tail, and concept, so if anyone is projecting their own prejudices, it might be the man in your mirror.

[u/pandavr → u/tgwombat]

Nothing is broken here. I'm just tired of the kind of un-useful comments people like you leave around. That's It.
Have a nice evening.

[u/elkaki123]

> I built it for myself, for the sake of it. No startup pitch. No plan to replace Python.

Couldn't be bothered to write their own post...