Bolt

Bolt is a new programming language for rapidly building complex applications. Bolt has an unique mix of features that allows you to write fully-fledged applications insanely fast.

• Garbage collected using state-of-the art garbage collectors where possible, so you don't have to worry about memory leaks.
• JSX support, so you write your views in the syntax you're already familiar with.
• Advanced language feature, such as algebraic effects, making things like React's useState primitive objects in the language.
• Cross-platform standard library, allowing you to write your code for the web and the desktop at the same time.

fn fac(n) {
  match n {
    0 => 1,
    _ => fac(n-1),
  }
}

print(fac(5)) // 10

FAQ

Why should I choose Bolt over JavaScript?

Bolt was made to make writing user-interfaces dead-simple, while also making sure the resulting code is really fast. You should choose Bolt if you care about correctness, performance and scalability.

• Correctness, because Bolt has a type system that is far superior to JavaScript's. No more member accesses into undefined or other weird error messages.
• Performance, because the language has been designed to leave room for a lot of optimisations. The garbage collector is one of the few overheads that the language requires.
• Scalability, because just like Rust, Bolt takes a functional approach to software design using type traits, favouring composition over inheritance.

What languages inspired Bolt?

Rust and Haskell are two of my favorite languages that you'll notice Bolt shares a lot of its syntax and semantics with.

What's the difference between Bolt and Rust?

I really like Rust, but if I just care about writing an application I believe Rust's memory model with its borrow checker is overkill. Having a garbage collector certainly results in a performance penalty, but I believe that as long as the user does not notice it, it does not really matter.

License

Bolt itself is licensed under the GPL-3.0, because we put a lot of work in it and we want the open-source nature of Bolt to be preserved. However, code that is compiled using the Bolt compiler may be licensed under any license you want.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.