Muon, a low-level programming language inspired by C, C# and Go

Muon

Muon is a modern low-level programming language, inspired by C, C#, Go, Rust and Python.

Design principles

1. Strongly, statically typed.

2. Data oriented.Just functions, structs and enums. NO: classes, inheritance, properties, etc.

3. No runtime.Lack of a runtime makes the language simpler, reduces application startup latency and makes it easy to use Muon code from other languages.

4. Extremely minimal core.A language should not dictate dependencies. There is a standard library, but it is completely optional.

5. High performance.Strive for parity with C.

6. Flexible memory management.Programmers can switch between allocators dynamically and can define their own allocators.

7. Avoid common memory safety pitfalls.Memory is initialized to zero. Array bounds are checked (can be turned off where needed).

8. No undefined behavior.Undefined behavior can lead to various , hard-to-spot , bugs . In Muon, all behavior, including platform-specific behavior, is defined.

9. Ergonomics matter.Programmers spend a lot of time working with a language, so ergonomics are important. Muon has:

   • Type inference for function return values and locals
   • Generics
   • Order independent declarations
   • Newline as statement separator
   • Uniform function call syntax
   • Reference type notation
   • Namespaces

10. Fail fast.Usually, error reporting/handling happens via return values. For unrecoverable errors and errors that a caller is not prepared to handle, Muon provides abandonment .

11. Small(-ish) language.Strive for a small, simple language. Having fewer ways to do something encourages a more consistent, focused ecosystem.

12. Fast & snappy tools.Provide tools centered around fast feedback and improving program understanding. E.g.: language server, REPL, hot reloading, debuggers, profilers.

Example

A glimpse of Muon:

Array {
	countOccurrences(items Array<T>) {
		map := Map.create<T, int>()
		for items {
			count := map.getOrDefault(it)
			map.addOrUpdate(it, count + 1)
		}
		return map
	}
}

main() {
	::currentAllocator = Memory.newArenaAllocator(4096)
	s := "How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?"
	freq := s.split(' ').countOccurrences() // Equivalent to: Array.countOccurrences(ref string.split(s, ' '))
	for e in freq {
		Stdout.writeLine(format("word: {}, count: {}", e.key, e.value))
	}
}

Current state

Tools. The compiler implements error recovery and has column accurate error reporting, which should make for a pleasant command line experience. More tools are planned for later this year.

Compiler output. The compiler currently outputs C code.This means that we inherit C's undefined behavior model, which goes against the goals listed above! An LLVM backend is in the works which will avoid any undefined behavior.

Performance. The compiler is fairly fast. The following numbers were obtained by compiling the Muon compiler (which is itself written in Muon), which is ~11.6K lines of code, on a 4Ghz core i7.

• Parser: 2.4 million lines/second.
• Type checker: 2.3 million lines/second.
• Code generator: 1.6 million lines/second.

The compiler is single threaded right now and there's lots of room for further improvement. One major caveat: after the above stages have finished, a C compiler still needs to run to generate the final binary, which usually takes up the most time. The LLVM backend will (hopefully) reduce this.

Supported platforms. The main focus is on Windows, Linux and macOS. However, because the compiler generates C code, it should be able to target most platforms. There is one restriction: the compiler assumes a 32-bit architecture. 64-bit support is in the works.

Getting started

To get started with Muon, see getting started . To learn more about the language, see Muon by example .

Also, check out the roadmap to see which features are coming up.

Patreon

Check out Muon's Patreon page if you'd like to support the project financially. If you can spare a few bucks a month, that would be very cool!

License

MIT