Show HN: Orbit a systems level programming language that compiles .sh to LLVM
17 hours ago
- #systems-automation
- #programming-language
- #performance
- Spaceship is a high-performance systems automation language designed to replace legacy shell scripting.
- Features include a strict, Go-inspired syntax, a powerful fixed-width type system, and JIT compilation for POSIX commands built on LLVM.
- Performance: Statically typed and JIT-compiled for maximum execution speed.
- Security: Eliminates shell injection vulnerabilities via a strict Process API using direct OS-level syscalls.
- Reliability: Explicit error handling model based on POSIX exit codes.
- Modern Syntax: Clean, Go-inspired syntax for readability and writability.
- Spaceship uses a strict, fixed-width type system with no type inference; all types must be explicitly declared.
- Error handling is explicit, mapping directly to POSIX exit codes and errno, with functions that can fail prefixed with '!'.
- External commands are executed using the Process API, preventing shell injection by passing arguments as structured arrays.
- Deferred execution model for command pipelines, with operations chained using .then() and executed with .run().
- @jit directive translates shell scripts into native POSIX logic, JIT-compiling them into the LLVM execution path.
- Primary standard library includes JIT-compiled POSIX layer and Syscalls runtime library for efficient system-level operations.
- Goal: Significant performance improvement over traditional shell scripting, aiming for ~14x faster execution in benchmarks.