AstonJ

AstonJ

The Hamler Programming Language

Another BEAM language…

The Hamler Programming Language

Hamler is a strongly-typed language with compile-time typechecking and built-in support for concurrency and distribution.

Hamler empowers industries to build the next generation of scalable, reliable, realtime applications, especially for 5G, IoT and edge computing.

Why Hamler?

For almost a decade, we have been developing software systems based on Erlang/OTP, especially our main product EMQ X - the scalable open-source MQTT broker. So, we have always believed that Erlang is a masterpiece of engineering. With amazing concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance, it is one of the few general-purpose language platforms able to properly handle concurrency and soft realtime.

However, from all the experience writing Erlang, we believe that the following features can help Erlang programmer better adapt to the coming wave of 5G, IoT and edge-programming and attract more people for using BEAM.

  • Compile-time type checking and type reference
  • ADTs, Function Composition, Type Classes
  • More friendly syntax for prosperous communities
  • Functor, Applicative and Monad…:slight_smile:

Now all the features are avaliable in the Hamler programming language.

Features

  • Functional programming
  • Haskell and ML style
  • ADT and Type Checking/Inference
  • Functions, higher-order functions
  • Currying and partial application
  • Pattern matching, and Guards
  • List comprehension
  • Applicative and Monad
  • Advanced module system
  • Built-in concurrency

Design

The Hamler source code is parsed to generate CST, then CoreErlang’s IR is generated after CST → AST → CoreFn’s syntax tree transformation, syntax analysis and type checking. The code is then used by the Erlang compiler to generate the final Beam bytecode.

The Hamler compiler architecture is shown below:

hamler-compiler

The Hamler 0.1 compiler was initially attempted to be implemented based on the GHC 8.10.1, but was later changed to adapt from Purescript Compiler 0.13.6’s

Link:

Most Liked

lpil

lpil

Creator of Gleam

I would be very interested to learn why they have created a new PureScript backend rather than using Purerl, the existing PureScript backend for Erlang.

From reading the compiler’s source code it seems the only new thing is the Erlang generation, so I would suggest this PureScript with a different name rather than a new language. Perhaps more changes are to come later.

Qqwy

Qqwy

Very interesting!

How does Hamler compare to Haskell, PureScript and e.g. Gleam?

It is currently based on the PureScript compiler. Does this mean that its syntax/semantics are (essentially) the same as PureScript (with changes in what is available in the standard library to e.g. support the BEAM VM’s features)? Or something else entirely?

How do Hamler datatypes compile down to Erlang’s built-in datatypes, and how easy is it to communicate (using e.g. a foreign-function-interface) with pre-existing Erlang/Elixir/etc. code?

Where Next?

Popular Backend topics Top

First poster: AstonJ
A new Ruby blog post/announcement has been posted! Get the full details here: Ruby 3.0.0 RC1 Released
New
First poster: bot
A new Haskell blog post/announcement has been posted! Get the full details here: Status update: GHC on Apple M1 hardware — The Glasgow ...
New
First poster: bot
Circle is a new programming language that extends C++ 17 to support data-driven imperative metaprogramming. Circle combines the immediacy...
New
First poster: OvermindDL1
Today we are happy to announce axum: An easy to use, yet powerful, web framework designed to take full advantage of the Tokio ecosystem. ...
New
First poster: bot
Kotlin v1.6.10 has been released. Link: Release Kotlin 1.6.10 · JetBrains/kotlin · GitHub
New
First poster: bot
Node.js v16.17.0 has been released. Link: https://github.com/nodejs/node/releases/tag/v16.17.0
New
First poster: brennan
A new Gleam blog post/announcement has been posted! Get the full details here: Hello echo! Hello git! - Gleam
New
NewsBot
A new Go blog post/announcement has been posted! Get the full details here: Traversal-resistant file APIs - The Go Programming Language
New
NewsBot
Node.js v20.19.0 has been released. Link: Release 2025-03-13, Version 20.19.0 'Iron' (LTS), @marco-ippolito · nodejs/node · GitHub
New
NewsBot
Node.js v22.15.0 has been released. Link: Release 2025-04-23, Version 22.15.0 'Jod' (LTS), @UlisesGascon prepared by @RafaelGSS · nodej...
New

Other popular topics Top

Devtalk
Hello Devtalk World! Please let us know a little about who you are and where you’re from :nerd_face:
New
AstonJ
If it’s a mechanical keyboard, which switches do you have? Would you recommend it? Why? What will your next keyboard be? Pics always w...
New
AstonJ
You might be thinking we should just ask who’s not using VSCode :joy: however there are some new additions in the space that might give V...
New
AstonJ
Thanks to @foxtrottwist’s and @Tomas’s posts in this thread: Poll: Which code editor do you use? I bought Onivim! :nerd_face: https://on...
New
AstonJ
I have seen the keycaps I want - they are due for a group-buy this week but won’t be delivered until October next year!!! :rofl: The Ser...
New
Exadra37
Oh just spent so much time on this to discover now that RancherOS is in end of life but Rancher is refusing to mark the Github repo as su...
New
New
rustkas
Intensively researching Erlang books and additional resources on it, I have found that the topic of using Regular Expressions is either c...
New
hilfordjames
There appears to have been an update that has changed the terminology for what has previously been known as the Taskbar Overflow - this h...
New
RobertRichards
Hair Salon Games for Girls Fun Girls Hair Saloon game is mainly developed for kids. This game allows users to select virtual avatars to ...
New