Show HN: The Aria Programming Language

2 egranata_aria 2 7/27/2025, 2:43:33 AM github.com ↗

Aria is a modern, dynamic scripting language. It is meant to be a "sweet spot" language, easy to pick-up and enjoyable to use.

It comes with a familiar C-style syntax, and draws inspiration from a variety of languages. It has a small but usable standard library and strives to be a low-ceremony-get-stuff-done kind of language.

It is currently at version 0.9 and I would love feedback as I work towards getting it to 1.0.

Comments (2)

ofalkaed · 7h ago

What would this offer me over more established scripting languages? Main thing I want to know when I see a new offering. On a quick look I find the almost but not quite C syntax more difficult to read, like the lack of parenthesis on the if statement's test and this is my biggest issue with C like languages, they change things just enough that I have to think about it and I don't see what the change offers beyond those used to C syntax having to stop and think.

egranata_aria · 6h ago

Good news is I can offer you parentheses, but they are indeed optional on conditionals/loops. I am fairly sure there are other C-style syntaxes that leave those out. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2061593/why-do-c-languag... - you can't have the same ambiguity if you have mandatory braces around the body. Would there be a reason to require them?

With that said, this will work just fine and you wouldn't have to think about it too hard, if at all:

  func main() {
    if (1 == 2) {
      println("oh no!");
    } else {       
      println("phew!");
    }
  }

On the more general point, why this vs. anything else? That's a great question. I have tried to hit a balance that I think is pleasant to write code in (e.g. I like not having __init__.aria files around to define modules :-), and I like having proper enums, and so on...). I like to think someone would pick up Aria because it is a fun little language to try out and experiment with, not because it would change the world.

Mileage may of course vary and you may think that balance is actually nowhere to be seen. That's great, hit me with it.