9 ms·

Odin 1.0 Announcement

109 points by jhack 2mo ago

viktorcode 2mo ago
I read through Odin's FAQ and didn't get the picture of what it does better than everyone else. I think it's missing a good short pitch.
- CyMonk 2mo ago
  Why not start with the home page? It provides a good overview and covers all the important points: * The Data-Oriented Language for Sane Software Development. * Odin is the C alternative for the Joy of Programming. * Simplicity, High Performance, For Modern Systems If you don't see value in these points, you are not part of the target audience.
  - konart 2mo ago
    >The Data-Oriented Language for Sane Software Development. What does this mean? What makes it more Data-Oriented than Go? What is sane development? What is insane development? >Simplicity What is simplicity in its case? For example one can argue that borrow checker in Rust is "simplicity" (even if you have to master it) but at the same time you can say that BC is complexity. Similar examples can be outlined for Go or any other language.
  - viktorcode 2mo ago
    What it does better than Rust? C++? Swift? And other language? Terms like "sane" and "joy" indicate highly subjective points, which does not help. Yes, I do not see value in knowing someone likes this language. I see value in technical features and examples showing how those features address common pain points in programming.
phplovesong 2mo ago
Odin looks very Go like, oddly it did the same design flaw, and forgot about proper error handling, and it seems to also do the same mistake zig did, and use llvm (so you get those nice 20min compile times). Odin also seem to lack adts? I guess a gamedev niche language can fly with these restrictions, but for a new general purpose langauge these are a must have.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
leecommamichael 2mo ago
I've been using and loving Odin for probably around 5 years now, with this past couple years being more seriously invested in it. After tens of thousands of lines of code I'm still very happy. If you like C, but feel it's missing a few things, I highly recommend giving Odin a shot. Among the new litter of "better C" languages, Odin is easily the lowest-friction. It makes for a very nice experience. Congratulations, gingerBill.
- christophilus 2mo ago
  Agreed completely. It’s my favorite language in its class. I need to build something serious in it someday. So far, I’ve only used it for building personal tools.
pjmlp 2mo ago
I kind of like Odin, with its Pascal/Modula-2 influences, even if the community is a bit hardcore on some of their ideas. Love the books in the background, and the whole video. It is also nice that Odin takes the batteries included approach. How well it would fair in the mainstream remains to be seen.
- bovermyer 2mo ago
  What kinds of project would Odin be best suited for, as compared to, say, Rust or Go?
  - leecommamichael 2mo ago
    Interactive applications where a GC is not an option. Rust is shockingly good at being a general purpose language, but that's in the face of the strict semantics of the language and approach to memory. There became a comparison against Go because Go offers strong performance and a complete opposite memory-management experience (in having a GC that largely solves it for you.) Odin sits between these two levels of friction, leaning far more on the Go side of things. There are goodies in Odin which make memory management much breezier than other manual languages, but I'll admit it is still a task you are expected to complete. So that's the story on the memory-management effort. That aside, I'd say Odin is best for interactive applications where a GC is not an option. Although at this point it comes out of my hands so easily that I'd probably write Odin in some situations where it'd be less optimal, and it'd be fun so why not?
  - pjmlp 2mo ago
    Game development. Go really only took off thanks to Docker and Kubernetes, and even if it would be capable, there is hardly an ecosystem there. Rust could be there, but there is really only Bevy, and several companies have tried it and pivoted to something else due to compile times hindering fast prototyping workflows. Odin was created at a games company, JangaFX, and has already a few products using it. https://jangafx.com https://jangafx.com Also Odin batteries include what you need to start coding a game right away, https://pkg.odin-lang.org/vendor https://pkg.odin-lang.org/vendor
d3Xt3r 2mo ago
Not to be confused with Samsung Odin[1], or ODIN (Open Disk Imager in a Nutshell)[2], or Odin for OS/2 Warp[3]... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin_(firmware_flashing_software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin_(firmware_flashing_softwa... [2] https://odin-win.sourceforge.net/ https://odin-win.sourceforge.net/ [3] https://odin.netlabs.org/ https://odin.netlabs.org/
- hatefulheart 2mo ago
  [flagged]
sirwhinesalot 2mo ago
Clickbait video title, the first major release is going to be 2027 (date based versioning) (j/k). Odin is a pretty neat language, I should play more with it. There's nothing outright wrong with it I can think of. Some things I would have done slightly different but they're all nitpicks (mainly having the context be a thread local so #contextless wouldn't be necessary).
- gingerBill 2mo ago
  Regarding the implementation of Odin's `context` not being thread-local, source from here: https://www.gingerbill.org/article/2025/12/15/odins-most-misunderstood-feature-context/#heading-2-12 https://www.gingerbill.org/article/2025/12/15/odins-most-mis... Another common question I’ve gotten a few times is why the `context` is passed as an implicit pointer argument to a procedure, and not something like a thread local variable stack? The rationale being that there would not need to be a calling convention difference for `context`. Unfortunately through a lot of experimentation and thought, there are a few reasons why it is implemented the way it is: * Easier to manage across LIB/DLL boundaries than trying to use a single thread-local stack * Easier management of recovery from crashes where the context might be hard to figure out. * Using the existing stack makes stack management easier already, you don’t need to have a separate allocator for that stack * Some platforms do not thread-local variables (e.g. freestanding targets) * Works better with async/fiber based things, which would then require a fiber-local stack instead of a thread-local one * Prevent back-propagation, which would be trivial with a global/thread-local stack Odin’s context also has copy-on-write semantics. This is done for two reasons: to keep things local, and prevent back-propagation of “bad” data from an third-party library (be it malicious or just buggy). So not having an easily accessible stack of context values makes it harder for this back-propagation to happen.
  - sirwhinesalot 2mo ago
    Yeah, all valid justifications.
bmacho 2mo ago
Bad video, I noped out after 2 mins, it is annoying and has a very low information density. Anyone uses a yt video -> information service that is fast, free, reliable etc?
- jug 2mo ago
  Free tier of Google Gemini can summarize and let you ask questions about pasted YT links.
otekengineering 2mo ago
a random video that some ginger dude put up on youtube doesn't seem like a reliable source. any info on this from a reputable institution? shame that HN can't meet the moderation quality bar set by wikipedia
- 7bit 2mo ago
  Honest question: Are you making a joke? Because while it objectively could be one, it doesn't sound like one. The random ginger dude is the creator of Odin.
  - vintermann 2mo ago
    It's probably a joke, because Odin was deleted from Wikipedia for being "not notable" recently, and the author thought it was because of his politics. I do think the guy's politics suck, but I also think his language's wiki page was probably targeted for it.
    - dismalaf 2mo ago
      > the guy's politics suck What politics?
      - vintermann 2mo ago
        Go look up the thread if you must.
        dismalaf 2mo ago
        Lol. I've been in the Odin Discord for 4 years, talked to GB a lot. He literally never talks about politics. On Discord (where one of the channels is basically politics 24/7), on X, nowhere.
    - 7bit 2mo ago
      Ah, that changes thing. That actually makes the joke better.
luxorious 2mo ago
There's something seriously off about this ginger bill guy. In addition to copying most of Odin from Jai, Bill copied Jon Blows announcement to his announcement as well as the fake surprised "oh I didn't see you there" opening for the real announcement. He's also planning to release the language the exact same time as Jai, and even said "after ten years of hard work its finally here." Any one of those things you could ignore, but all of them together and its starting to be weird.
- Cyberdog 2mo ago
  > He's also planning to release the language the exact same time as Jai Except that Odin has been "released" and has been used to ship software for years now. Regardless of Bill's inspirations for his language, I can write code with Odin right now, and that's a huge benefit compared to waiting for Blow to finally be in the mood to release Jai.
- leecommamichael 2mo ago
  What would you say is similar between Odin and Jai? I briefly used Jai (I have never had access) and found that essentially only declaration syntax is familiar.
  - luxorious 2mo ago
    The entire concept of Odin seems to be taken from Jai. They're both aiming to be C/C++ replacements "for the joy of programming" (another thing that was in the early Jai videos that Bill ripped off). In addition to the syntax (which is eerily similar across the entire language), there is the "using" keyword, the "defer" keyword, the context system, custom allocators, native AoS, polymorphic procedures, etc. Again, any one of those things on it's own is not a smoking gun, and many of these features and syntax are becoming standard in modern languages. But the fact that SO MANY of Odin's features and even it's marketing strategy seems to be copying Jon Blow is weird to me. You can still go watch Jon's videos demoing early Jai from 11 years ago...and if you check the comments you'll see a familiar ginger face, so there's no doubt Bill saw those videos when they came out, and began developing Odin AFTER he saw Jai. If he was simply inspired by Jon that's fine, there's nothing wrong with more well-thought out programming languages in the world. But when you copy a lot of the language, copy the announcement to the announcement video, copy the announcement video, and also plan to release at the exact same time as Jai, while largely denying that Jai had any influence of your language, red flags will go off for anyone that's paying attention.

109 points by jhack 2mo ago

I read through Odin's FAQ and didn't get the picture of what it does better than everyone else. I think it's missing a good short pitch.

CyMonk 2mo ago
Why not start with the home page? It provides a good overview and covers all the important points: * The Data-Oriented Language for Sane Software Development. * Odin is the C alternative for the Joy of Programming. * Simplicity, High Performance, For Modern Systems If you don't see value in these points, you are not part of the target audience.
- konart 2mo ago
  >The Data-Oriented Language for Sane Software Development. What does this mean? What makes it more Data-Oriented than Go? What is sane development? What is insane development? >Simplicity What is simplicity in its case? For example one can argue that borrow checker in Rust is "simplicity" (even if you have to master it) but at the same time you can say that BC is complexity. Similar examples can be outlined for Go or any other language.
- viktorcode 2mo ago
  What it does better than Rust? C++? Swift? And other language? Terms like "sane" and "joy" indicate highly subjective points, which does not help. Yes, I do not see value in knowing someone likes this language. I see value in technical features and examples showing how those features address common pain points in programming.

phplovesong 2mo ago

Odin looks very Go like, oddly it did the same design flaw, and forgot about proper error handling, and it seems to also do the same mistake zig did, and use llvm (so you get those nice 20min compile times). Odin also seem to lack adts? I guess a gamedev niche language can fly with these restrictions, but for a new general purpose langauge these are a must have.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

leecommamichael 2mo ago

I've been using and loving Odin for probably around 5 years now, with this past couple years being more seriously invested in it. After tens of thousands of lines of code I'm still very happy. If you like C, but feel it's missing a few things, I highly recommend giving Odin a shot. Among the new litter of "better C" languages, Odin is easily the lowest-friction. It makes for a very nice experience. Congratulations, gingerBill.

christophilus 2mo ago
Agreed completely. It’s my favorite language in its class. I need to build something serious in it someday. So far, I’ve only used it for building personal tools.

pjmlp 2mo ago

I kind of like Odin, with its Pascal/Modula-2 influences, even if the community is a bit hardcore on some of their ideas. Love the books in the background, and the whole video. It is also nice that Odin takes the batteries included approach. How well it would fair in the mainstream remains to be seen.

bovermyer 2mo ago
What kinds of project would Odin be best suited for, as compared to, say, Rust or Go?
- leecommamichael 2mo ago
  Interactive applications where a GC is not an option. Rust is shockingly good at being a general purpose language, but that's in the face of the strict semantics of the language and approach to memory. There became a comparison against Go because Go offers strong performance and a complete opposite memory-management experience (in having a GC that largely solves it for you.) Odin sits between these two levels of friction, leaning far more on the Go side of things. There are goodies in Odin which make memory management much breezier than other manual languages, but I'll admit it is still a task you are expected to complete. So that's the story on the memory-management effort. That aside, I'd say Odin is best for interactive applications where a GC is not an option. Although at this point it comes out of my hands so easily that I'd probably write Odin in some situations where it'd be less optimal, and it'd be fun so why not?
- pjmlp 2mo ago
  Game development. Go really only took off thanks to Docker and Kubernetes, and even if it would be capable, there is hardly an ecosystem there. Rust could be there, but there is really only Bevy, and several companies have tried it and pivoted to something else due to compile times hindering fast prototyping workflows. Odin was created at a games company, JangaFX, and has already a few products using it. https://jangafx.com https://jangafx.com Also Odin batteries include what you need to start coding a game right away, https://pkg.odin-lang.org/vendor https://pkg.odin-lang.org/vendor

d3Xt3r 2mo ago

Not to be confused with Samsung Odin[1], or ODIN (Open Disk Imager in a Nutshell)[2], or Odin for OS/2 Warp[3]... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin_(firmware_flashing_software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin_(firmware_flashing_softwa... [2] https://odin-win.sourceforge.net/ https://odin-win.sourceforge.net/ [3] https://odin.netlabs.org/ https://odin.netlabs.org/

hatefulheart 2mo ago
[flagged]

sirwhinesalot 2mo ago

Clickbait video title, the first major release is going to be 2027 (date based versioning) (j/k). Odin is a pretty neat language, I should play more with it. There's nothing outright wrong with it I can think of. Some things I would have done slightly different but they're all nitpicks (mainly having the context be a thread local so #contextless wouldn't be necessary).

gingerBill 2mo ago
Regarding the implementation of Odin's `context` not being thread-local, source from here: https://www.gingerbill.org/article/2025/12/15/odins-most-misunderstood-feature-context/#heading-2-12 https://www.gingerbill.org/article/2025/12/15/odins-most-mis... Another common question I’ve gotten a few times is why the `context` is passed as an implicit pointer argument to a procedure, and not something like a thread local variable stack? The rationale being that there would not need to be a calling convention difference for `context`. Unfortunately through a lot of experimentation and thought, there are a few reasons why it is implemented the way it is: * Easier to manage across LIB/DLL boundaries than trying to use a single thread-local stack * Easier management of recovery from crashes where the context might be hard to figure out. * Using the existing stack makes stack management easier already, you don’t need to have a separate allocator for that stack * Some platforms do not thread-local variables (e.g. freestanding targets) * Works better with async/fiber based things, which would then require a fiber-local stack instead of a thread-local one * Prevent back-propagation, which would be trivial with a global/thread-local stack Odin’s context also has copy-on-write semantics. This is done for two reasons: to keep things local, and prevent back-propagation of “bad” data from an third-party library (be it malicious or just buggy). So not having an easily accessible stack of context values makes it harder for this back-propagation to happen.
- sirwhinesalot 2mo ago
  Yeah, all valid justifications.

bmacho 2mo ago

Bad video, I noped out after 2 mins, it is annoying and has a very low information density. Anyone uses a yt video -> information service that is fast, free, reliable etc?

jug 2mo ago
Free tier of Google Gemini can summarize and let you ask questions about pasted YT links.

otekengineering 2mo ago

a random video that some ginger dude put up on youtube doesn't seem like a reliable source. any info on this from a reputable institution? shame that HN can't meet the moderation quality bar set by wikipedia

7bit 2mo ago
Honest question: Are you making a joke? Because while it objectively could be one, it doesn't sound like one. The random ginger dude is the creator of Odin.
- vintermann 2mo ago
  It's probably a joke, because Odin was deleted from Wikipedia for being "not notable" recently, and the author thought it was because of his politics. I do think the guy's politics suck, but I also think his language's wiki page was probably targeted for it.
  - dismalaf 2mo ago
    > the guy's politics suck What politics?
    - vintermann 2mo ago
      Go look up the thread if you must.
      - dismalaf 2mo ago
        Lol. I've been in the Odin Discord for 4 years, talked to GB a lot. He literally never talks about politics. On Discord (where one of the channels is basically politics 24/7), on X, nowhere.
  - 7bit 2mo ago
    Ah, that changes thing. That actually makes the joke better.

luxorious 2mo ago

There's something seriously off about this ginger bill guy. In addition to copying most of Odin from Jai, Bill copied Jon Blows announcement to his announcement as well as the fake surprised "oh I didn't see you there" opening for the real announcement. He's also planning to release the language the exact same time as Jai, and even said "after ten years of hard work its finally here." Any one of those things you could ignore, but all of them together and its starting to be weird.

Cyberdog 2mo ago
> He's also planning to release the language the exact same time as Jai Except that Odin has been "released" and has been used to ship software for years now. Regardless of Bill's inspirations for his language, I can write code with Odin right now, and that's a huge benefit compared to waiting for Blow to finally be in the mood to release Jai.
leecommamichael 2mo ago
What would you say is similar between Odin and Jai? I briefly used Jai (I have never had access) and found that essentially only declaration syntax is familiar.
- luxorious 2mo ago
  The entire concept of Odin seems to be taken from Jai. They're both aiming to be C/C++ replacements "for the joy of programming" (another thing that was in the early Jai videos that Bill ripped off). In addition to the syntax (which is eerily similar across the entire language), there is the "using" keyword, the "defer" keyword, the context system, custom allocators, native AoS, polymorphic procedures, etc. Again, any one of those things on it's own is not a smoking gun, and many of these features and syntax are becoming standard in modern languages. But the fact that SO MANY of Odin's features and even it's marketing strategy seems to be copying Jon Blow is weird to me. You can still go watch Jon's videos demoing early Jai from 11 years ago...and if you check the comments you'll see a familiar ginger face, so there's no doubt Bill saw those videos when they came out, and began developing Odin AFTER he saw Jai. If he was simply inspired by Jon that's fine, there's nothing wrong with more well-thought out programming languages in the world. But when you copy a lot of the language, copy the announcement to the announcement video, copy the announcement video, and also plan to release at the exact same time as Jai, while largely denying that Jai had any influence of your language, red flags will go off for anyone that's paying attention.