Goose: 1.16x faster than C++ and 1.12x than safe Rust, while memory safe
Goose is a memory-safe systems language that outperforms C++ and safe Rust on speed and memory, with no allocator, GC, or lifetime annotations. Built on the idea that there is no heap, values live inline on compiler-managed data stacks. It claims 3.3x speed of idiomatic C++, 1.16x hand-optimized C++, and 1.12x best safe Rust, using 1.9x, 1.3x, and 1.2x less memory across sixteen benchmarks.
A memory-safe systems language that is faster than C++ and Rust, on less memory, with no allocator/GC and no lifetime annotations.
- dang
The submitter asked us to take this down because the language is missing some important elements they should have added before posting. I don't think we can do that because the thread is so active, but we'll bury this one so they can repost it when ready.
- tom_
So much Claude text. I'm sure this is great (I did a bunch of stuff with/to aardappel's lobster, years ago, and it was pretty tidy, and quite easy to work with), but: Claude's writing makes my brain melt.
It's a no from me. I'm sorry.
- sodacanner
I just can't understand why you'd let an LLM write your README. The code, the implementation? Sure! That's the purpose of a coding agent.
The README, though? That's the first thing I read about your project. Anybody familiar with LLMs is going to pick up that one wrote it in an instant. Surely you understand your own project well enough to write it in your own words, right? If not, what's even the purpose of the project in the first place?
- backlands
> Goose looks familiar like C or Rust, and is built on one idea: there is no heap
So it looks like it restricts the memory management to 100% scope based. I expect that makes a lot of designs for programs not translate to it as well as they fit in Rust or Java (for example). There are a bunch more constraining design choices they list further down:
> - Nothing ever moves
> - ... A string, an array of strings, a record with variable-size fields and an array of those records are each one contiguous block with no pointer in it
I'll have to look a bit deeper to decide if it's feasible to write many things in this language.
- pizlonator
This is neat.
But the benchmarks are tiny, and it’s likely that Goose was tuned on them.
So, I think I would read this as: Goose has competitive performance to C and Rust and I’ll take them at their word that it’s as memory safe as Rust