Vx – One Language, Every Chip (vxlang.org)
42 points by elffjs 4 hours ago
jack_h 6 minutes ago
I'm reminded of a number of critiques that have popped up over the years such as "C Is Not a Low-level Language: Your computer is not a fast PDP-11" and others I can't remember at the moment. In essence our "low level" languages are designed to run on an abstract machine that hasn't changed much since the 70s while the actual hardware it's meant to abstract over has become incredibly sophisticated. As a simple example consider how many programming languages have something simple like SIMD support without dropping into compiler intrinsics or relying on the optimizer.
I've actually created some experimental DSL embeddings around this idea before as I find it a fascinating area. Skimming through the Vx docs it seems like it is moving some of the abstract machine into the type system for greater flexibility.
pdpi an hour ago
> Vx is the right language for the thing that must be correct and fast across ten kinds of silicon. It is not the right language for the thing you are still figuring out.
A bit tangential, but I really *really* appreciate them making this distinction, and wish more people did this. Way too many tools try to advertise themselves as all things for all people, catering to all use cases, and that helps nobody.
yewenjie 2 hours ago
Why is it giving me Vlang vibe
Cyan488 2 hours ago
> Heterogeneity belongs in the type system, not in the runtime.
Is the intent that applications developed with this are compiled for target hardware on a machine-specific basis?
e.g. I define a machine file for my i5 and GTX3080, and another machine file for my gnarly datacenter rack, and the compiler compiles specifically for each?
That way the same source file is "provable" for different hardware configurations without relying on a runtime to be identicallu implemented?
dev_dan_2 40 minutes ago
Always nice seeing others arriving at similar conclusions! Those two jump out to me:
- "Most compilers hard-code a cost model. Vx reads one. A machine file describes the memory hierarchy and interconnect of a real part, and the compiler admits or rejects placements against it." I also designed it so that the target system is described by a single file that is picked up by the static analysis - cool!
- "Where data lives is part of its type" also doing that - when I got my project to an mvp state; I need to check out how vxlang does what it does: do they use a literal typesystem, or also compile checks outside of that? If its a type system, is it a dependent type system, or another flavor?
Yet another motivation to finally get my side project starting (forth-adjacent, many similar claims with regards to compile-time checks as vxlang; however, I still have to achieve that, while they already seem to have at least those and more in place; kudos to the vxlang team!)
IshKebab 40 minutes ago
Ugh guys... The front page of your project is the most important thing there is. If you can't even be bothered to write it yourself then I don't have much hope for the rest of your project.
Muromec 33 minutes ago
Right, right? I see the llm smell seeping through the quotes shared here without even visiting
airstrike 11 minutes ago
They could at least pick a less overused model so it doesn't feel this grating to read
png732 2 hours ago
Is there a backstory for this being named Vx? Seems a bit too close for comfort to the VxWorks OS, though there seems to be no connection.
Skwid 2 hours ago
Better than I was thinking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)
amelius 2 hours ago
> Vx is the right language for the thing that must be correct and fast across ten kinds of silicon. It is not the right language for the thing you are still figuring out.
Sounds like a great language for an AI to use then :)
api 2 hours ago
Why does this need a new language? Aren't there existing languages where these concepts can be expressed?
paufernandez 29 minutes ago
Yeah, Mojo.
AnimalMuppet 4 hours ago
I haven't played with it at all, but the writeup looks promising. Moving a bunch of things into the type system and out of runtime crashes is one of the ways we make progress.
dnautics 2 hours ago
I think this is wrong. Type systems should be simpler, and you should design it so that your language is easily and correctly statically checked. Not all invariants necessarily have to be verified at the same cadence (compile time)
treyd 2 hours ago
> you should design it so that your language is easily and correctly statically checked.
You do that by making the type system more sophisticated.
If you have a really important invariant that you really don't want to be violated due to run-time behavior/input, it's a huge benefit to have a compiler that can statically check that it actually can't be. That's one of the main benefits of having type systems, not just describing the shape of data structures in memory.
dnautics 2 hours ago
AnimalMuppet 22 minutes ago
But what does static analysis work on? The source code. If it's not in the source code, the static analyzer can't check it. So if you want to check something, even with a static analyzer, then you need some way to talk about that thing in the source code, which means it has to be part of the source language.
Now, sure, you could have some kind of annotations in the comments or something, and a static analyzer that checked those, and you could get that to check pretty much anything that can be checked statically. But at that point, it's not really part of the language, is it?
classified 2 hours ago
So you prefer runtime crashes to compiler diagnostics, just so the type system can be "simpler"? I find these priorities backwards.
dnautics 2 hours ago
BatchJob 2 hours ago
Here we go again, why dont we try this again?