Jank Programming Language
8 comments
·July 6, 2025Jeaye
dzonga
beautiful work. clojure is very nice. one of the most impactful talks I have ever seen was from Rich Hickey - simple made easy.
however my only gripe with clojure while it's easy to write and comprehend at first - it's difficult to read. & yet most our time we read code not write it. but then again it might be my lack of brain power.
mgdev
I love this project. I've been a sponsor on GitHub since late last year.
But for the love of... please pick a different name.
Whatever reasons companies/teams will have for not letting someone use Jank at work, don't let the name be one of them.
npalli
Since this appears to be the marquee feature (compared to the well regarded Clojure) it would be good to see some benchmarks comparing the JVM to LLVM versions.
This allows jank to offer the same benefits of REPL-based development while being able to seamlessly reach into the native world and compete seriously with JVM's performance.
Hey folks. I'm the creator of jank. I didn't expect to be on HN today, but I appreciate the interest.
In short, jank is Clojure, but it's on LLVM and has seamless C++ interop. You still get full nREPL capabilities, can redefine anything on the fly, and we can actually JIT compile C++ code alongside your Clojure. The seamless C++ interop is first of its kind, for a lisp, and is done by JIT compiling C++ alongside the LLVM IR we generate for jank and then stitching them together into one IR module.
Note, jank isn't released yet. I'm targeting the end of this year for the first alpha release. I put out monthly development updates on the jank blog, with the next one coming out this week.