Heroes: the build logOne entry per milestone up to the site's last refresh, newest first.https://heroes-lang.org/log/2026-10-26T21:12:42ZGiuseppe AriciThe check that could not endhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#732026-10-26T21:12:42ZEvery issue still open, defects, tasks and features alike, was run again against the compiler as it stands and given a written answer: some had been settled along the way, some no longer applied, a few were fixed on the spot.The claim, put to the testhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#722026-10-26T21:12:42ZFor the first time the claim Heroes is built on was tested with models in the loop, the AI programs that write code: forty tasks the author wrote and sealed, every one a trap, judged with Heroes’ own rules on and off, under a prediction made public before the first answer.The seed gets a witnesshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#712026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe seed, the one C file a machine without Heroes builds the compiler from, had only ever shown that it reproduces itself, as a lying seed could too. Now a second, independent compiler vouches for it.Read, and never writtenhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#702026-10-26T21:12:42ZA function that only reads what its caller holds can now say so: function peek(l: Lex lent) reads the caller’s value where it stands, never writes it, and is called as plain peek(l).What it was built fromhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#692026-10-26T21:12:42ZEvery program Heroes builds now carries a fingerprint of what it was made from: its sources, its library and its runtime, the support code that goes into every program. heroes --version prints the compiler’s own on its second line.The value C computeshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#682026-10-26T21:12:42ZWhen a C library’s header, the file where it describes what it offers, defines a constant, the compiler now takes the value C itself computes, by running a small piece of the program under clang’s checks.A stopped program shows what you wrotehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#672026-10-26T21:12:42ZStop a Heroes program in a debugger, the tool that pauses a running program so you can look inside, and it now shows what you wrote: your own variables, and their values in Heroes, a list as a list and a failure as a failure.Every item becomes a public issuehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#662026-10-26T21:12:42ZEvery defect, decision and task the project has tracked is now an issue on GitHub, the public site where its code lives: more than two thousand, imported in the order they were born, each keeping its own dates. Then the folder they came from left the repository.A variable that changes gets a symbol of its ownhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#592026-10-26T21:12:42ZA variable whose value can change, a cell, is now declared v @= 0 and takes its type from its value; v @ v + 1 changes it, and a cell that nothing ever changes is refused, with a fix that writes =.The list that would not run dryhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#652026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe three words written on a C library’s handles, the addresses it hands a program for things it owns, became five, and the runtime now numbers every life C hands out. An address is not an identity: C can free one and hand it out again.The word that could not reach the callhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#642026-10-26T21:12:42ZA C function handed an address into a program’s memory is now taken to keep it, unless its declaration says lent: the panel had declined that default, and the author chose it on principle, provided the cost was measured, under forty billionths of a second a call.The wall was half a miragehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#632026-10-26T21:12:42ZText C writes into a fixed field of bytes, like the machine’s name the system fills in, can now be printed: f.validated_bytes() reads it, or says it is not text.The fourth machine scored its own prediction falsehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#622026-10-26T21:12:42ZHeroes now builds and runs on a fourth kind of machine, Linux on ARM processors, and the first thing it did was prove its own prediction false.A hole that was not where the name saidhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#582026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe milestone went hunting for programs heroes check accepts and heroes build refuses, and found that only one of its four faces was that gap, and it was already closed, by a sitting held the same day as the one that named it.Three words for what is borrowed from Chttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#572026-10-26T21:12:42ZA binding now says, on every function that touches a handle, one of three things: acquires and who takes it back, consumes, borrows. None of the three is inferred by the compiler.The label goes on the handing over, not on the thinghttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#562026-10-26T21:12:42ZWriting on a handle’s type who closes it, so the compiler closes it by itself: refused, because one function hands the same connection over and another only shows it, and a label on the type cannot know which of the two gave it.The library’s own name becomes the typehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#552026-10-26T21:12:42ZA pointer a C library hands you can carry the name the library gives it: record Db tag sqlite3. Hand one where another belongs and the compiler stops you on that line.The reasons had rotted under the answershttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#542026-10-26T21:12:42ZEvery entry on the list of postponed things received a date and a verdict: it enters, it is refused for good, or it waits with a checkable condition. Nine entries, nine sittings, and nine times the answer was fine and the reason written under it had rotted.Every ceiling says which way it may movehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#532026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe author said he kept hitting his head on the ceilings and asked which of them still made sense. Almost all had been set to the exact height of the thing measured, on the day somebody measured it.The name of a thing is no longer text typed by handhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#522026-10-26T21:12:42ZA program cannot ask a value what it is made of: three no’s, and each time the written reason was false, so the reasons were replaced with measurable ones.The grammar went where the prose washttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#512026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe author asked for the language written down formally, in a file of its own. Five seats looked at it from five directions and every one broke the same half: the part that would have been copied out by hand.The records are no longer one file eachhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#502026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe author asked whether two pieces of work could run at once, and the answer was a measurement: two sessions never meet in the compiler, they meet in the records, on the one line both have to write.fold’s type says which of the two is the pilehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#492026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe function that combines two things receives the accumulator and the element, and if they are of one type either order compiles and the program answers something else. Now the type says which is which, and the compiler checks that the function you hand over agrees.A function type carries the names that can be confusedhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#482026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe half of the hole the panel had priced and refused, the author said to build anyway: a function’s type carries the names of the arguments that can be swapped, and changing one makes it another type.Three routes refused by three seats, and the fourth built in twenty-five lineshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#472026-10-26T21:12:42ZA label written in a call made through a function held in a variable is refused: the function has no names to compare it with.The naming rule reaches the built-in functionshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#462026-10-26T21:12:42ZIf two of a function’s arguments are of one type, you have to say which is which. The compiler enforced it on everything the author wrote and on nothing it provided itself.Thirteen numbers over thirteen doorshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#452026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe author read the language’s own description and said it looked like a room nobody had ever tidied: every rule was there, each where it had been dropped. The tidying cost less than nothing.Text with holes in ithttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#442026-10-26T21:12:42ZA string can now carry values: f"line {n}: {word}" writes each hole as to_str would.The ruling on interpolationhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#432026-10-26T21:12:42ZThree counts decided how a string may hold a value, and the counts corrected the first guess twice.Bytes a C library may keephttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#422026-10-26T21:12:42ZA program can hand a C library text it will keep, and say when it is done with it: x: cstr @= s.lease(), then end_lease(@x).A lent string stays where it was lenthttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#412026-10-26T21:12:42ZA string lent to C with .cstr() may stand only as an argument of the call that reads it.A note nobody had countedhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#612026-10-26T21:12:42ZClosures, functions that carry the variables around them, do not enter Heroes. A note had called them easy since the design’s first week; when the day came to build them, the first thing anybody did was count.The polite way to lose a failurehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#602026-10-26T21:12:42ZWriting _ = in front of a call that can fail now stops the compile. Thrown away with the value went the news that it had failed, and the program finished with the number that means all is well.The repository is openhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#402026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe compiler’s source, the specification and every record the project keeps can now be read by anyone.Freeing strings returned by Chttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#392026-10-26T21:12:42ZAn extern declaration can name the function that frees a string allocated by a C library. The compiler calls it automatically.Checking thread stack spacehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#382026-10-26T21:12:42ZThreads started by Heroes now report when they run out of space for function calls.Separate memory for each threadhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#372026-10-26T21:12:42ZEach Heroes thread, an operation running in parallel, manages separate memory.Passing Heroes functions to C librarieshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#362026-10-26T21:12:42ZYou can pass a Heroes function to atexit or pthread_create. The callbacks required by qsort and signal are not supported yet.Larger examples to test the compilerhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#352026-10-26T21:12:42ZMore complex programs were added to cover the gap between small examples and the compiler.An error when passing array elementshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#342026-10-26T21:12:42ZA comment described a crash as impossible, but one line could reproduce it.Documenting moduleshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#332026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe documentation lacked an explanation of how to organise a program’s files.Expanding the exampleshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#322026-10-26T21:12:42ZNew programs were chosen to test more parts of the language.Organising source files into directorieshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#312026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe compiler’s files were organised into directories.Using paths for moduleshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#302026-10-26T21:12:42ZModules can be found in subdirectories using a path.Running commands without a shellhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#292026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe compiler started tools by building a string for the shell, the program that interprets commands.Compiling one module at a timehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#282026-10-26T21:12:42ZCompilation generated one large C file even after a small change.Archiving the first compilerhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#272026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe first compiler was archived.Writing the test tools in Heroeshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#262026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe tools that check the compiler were rewritten in Heroes.Distributing the compiler as a C filehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#252026-10-26T21:12:42ZBuilding the compiler requires compiling one generated C file with clang.The compiler written in Heroeshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#242026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe compiler was converted from Rust to Heroes, together with its tests.Converting the first modulehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#232026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe first trial converted one file and recorded any limits encountered.Completing support for C structureshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#222026-10-26T21:12:42ZMore C declarations became usable from Heroes.Passing structures to C functionshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#212026-10-26T21:12:42ZC structures group several fields into one value, but Heroes could not yet pass them to functions.Checking C function parametershttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#202026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe compiler checked C function results but not their parameters.Finding defects with complete programshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#192026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe first complete programs found new compiler defects.Integers of different widthshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#182026-10-26T21:12:42ZHeroes introduced eight integer types with explicit widths.Making numeric bases explicithttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#172026-10-26T21:12:42ZA reviewer wrote 0700 for file permissions and asked how it was interpreted.Using constants from C headershttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#162026-10-26T21:12:42ZC library options can be named in the program.Checking declarations against headershttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#152026-10-26T21:12:42ZAn example returned 1 where 1.41 was expected: C declaration checking had a defect.Defining module nameshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#142026-10-26T21:12:42ZPrograms can be split into files.Completing generics and core operationshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#132026-10-26T21:12:42ZGeneric functions and core operations were completed.Maps and fallible resultshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#122026-10-26T21:12:42ZImplementing maps depended on values that represent a result or an error.Representing recursive datahttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#112026-10-26T21:12:42ZHeroes can represent an expression tree without mutable references between values.Managing string memoryhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#102026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe compiler introduced reference counting to free memory.Producing the first executablehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#92026-10-26T21:12:42ZA Heroes program was compiled into a native executable.Choosing the internal representationhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#82026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe compiler’s intermediate representation of a program was defined.Measuring the first checkshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#72026-10-26T21:12:42ZName, type and missing-case checks were tested by introducing mistakes into working programs.Connecting names to declarationshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#62026-10-26T21:12:42ZName checking rejected two declarations in a calculator program.Parsing and formatting codehttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#52026-10-26T21:12:42ZWriting the parser, which recognises code structure, revealed a contradiction in the specification.Splitting source into tokenshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#42026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe first compiler component divides source text into tokens, the elements the compiler recognises.Preparing the project and testshttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#32026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe Rust project, test tools and first example programs were prepared.Reviewing the planhttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#22026-10-26T21:12:42ZFive reviewers critically examined the plan before implementation.The initial ideahttps://heroes-lang.org/log/#12026-10-26T21:12:42ZThe project began with a document and a discussion about the language.