Rust but Lisp
Languages and libraries
transpiler
SHOW HN2026
How HN took it
4 positive, 16 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 17 critical, out of 37 comments about the project. Thread score -0.33.
Idea: 2 for, 5 againstDesign: 2 for, 4 againstDocs: 0 for, 4 againstExecution: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Interesting or nifty idea for surfacing Rust semantics
From 3 comments
I think some comments are missing the upside of it being precisely Rust, without any new semantics. If you want lisp that compiles to machine code, Common Lisp can get reasonably…
hawkice on HNthis is actually very interesting approach to syntax remixing, while keeping the ontology
larodi on HNI actually like it better than plain Rust…
rbanffy on HN
Objections
Seems vibecoded or LLM-generated, with doubts about its quality
From 3 comments
How is pure unbridled AI slop like this making the front page? Voting rings? I don't even feel bad saying this because clearly OP is just the front for Claude here.
slopinthebag on HNIt's a vibecoded parser...
andrepd on HNI don't understand why this had to be LLM generated. S-expression syntax parsers are not hard to write. That's rather much the point of S-expressions.
moron4hire on HN
Code does not compile out of the box and has codegen bugs with single-letter types
From 1 comment
Pretty nifty. As of now, the code doesn't compile: there's some stray "span" stuff in codegen.rs[1], and it's trying to format `Warning` which doesn't implement `Display` in…
moefh on HN
Is just Rust in s-expressions rather than a real Lisp dialect
From 2 comments
It seems like this is more like writing Rust in an s-expression syntax instead of having a proper lisp dialect that compiles to Rust, which is cool I guess but not very…
GalaxyNova on HN> ((. dx powf 2.0) + (. dy powf 2.0)) sqrt)) I don't know what this is, but clearly not Lisp...
lefra on HN
Lacks lifetime and turbofish examples and a macro language with conditionals
From 2 comments
Claims to have all the syntax covered, but not a single example of specifying lifetimes or the turbofish, some of the trickiest rust syntax
vermilingua on HNI think this misses the point of LISP macros. LISP macros are just functions written in LISP, so here macros need to be functions written in Rust-but-LISP, but it is not so. In…
goldsteinq on HN
Requests
Error messages with source spans pointing to Lisp code
From 2 comments
So if I wanted to actually use this and I write some rust-but-lisp code and there's a compile error, will it show me a nice error message with an arrow pointing to where the…
skulk on HNGood idea! I'm adding error messages + spans ala ariadne now
thatxliner on HN
Integration with rust-analyzer LSP
From 1 comment
So if I wanted to actually use this and I write some rust-but-lisp code and there's a compile error, will it show me a nice error message with an arrow pointing to where the…
skulk on HN
Questions
How syntax changes would handle compatibility with Rust releases
From 1 comment
How do you change the syntax to eliminate reverse compatibility? I guess you could change the names of most key functions between releases. But to be compatible with rust you…
OhMeadhbh on HN
Why it was built instead of using Scheme's hygienic macros
From 1 comment
Scheme already has hygenic macros, I don't get why you'd vibecode a worse (less battle tested, llm-generated) replacement. I'm not sure why this hit the front-page, to be honest,…
fao_ on HN
Alternatives named
Fennel
From 1 comment
So I'm guessing it's sort of like Fennel, which consciously doesn't completely hide its underlying Lua runtime? https://fennel-lang.org/
busfahrer on HN
Carp
From 2 comments
And if you like Lisp and ownership, there's also Carp [1]. It doesn't mimic Rust's features and naming schemes though. Carp is about 10 years old and has some cool demo's (like…
foresterre on HNI’ve seen this done with C as well. https://www.eriksvedang.com/carp https://github.com/tomhrr/dale
geon on HN
Loon
From 1 comment
Readers may enjoy my lisp, Loon, which takes heavy inspiration from Rust https://loonlang.com/guide/ownership
ecto on HN
Common Lisp
From 1 comment
I think some comments are missing the upside of it being precisely Rust, without any new semantics. If you want lisp that compiles to machine code, Common Lisp can get reasonably…
hawkice on HN