SFX
A language where 0.1 and 0.2 = 0.3 and Context is first-class
Details
- External ID
- 46174878
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- SFX
- Website domain
- github.com
- Launched
- Dec. 6, 2025
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 11
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.5286259541984732
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
Description
I've spent the last few weeks building SFX in Rust. It's a programming language experiment focused on context-oriented programming with some unusual design choices.Reality check first:Solo project, 53 commits1 GitHub star xDZero users besides meNo production usageDocumentation is aspirationalMany stdlib modules are minimal stubsWhat actually works:Basic interpreter (tree-walker)Arbitrary precision decimals (0.1 + 0.2 = 0.3)1-based indexing (controversial, I know)Context/Situation system (the main idea)Some file I/O and basic networkingJIT hooks exist but optimization is minimalThe Context idea (asking for feedback on this):Instead of checking if (user.isAdmin) everywhere, you define Situation: AdminMode that overrides methods: Concept: User To GetPermissions: Return "read" Situation: AdminMode Adjust User: To GetPermissions: Return "admin,write,delete" Story: Create User Called Bob Switch on AdminMode Print Bob.GetPermissions # Now returns "admin,write,delete" Objects change behavior based on active situations without mutating state. Is this useful or just overengineered?What's NOT ready:Performance is terrible (haven't optimized anything)Standard lib is mostly TODOsAI features are vaporwareREPL doesn't existNo tooling (LSP, debugger, etc.)Tests exist but coverage is poorMy questions:Is context-oriented programming solving a real problem or creating busywork?Should I focus on making it fast OR making the stdlib useful?Is 1-based indexing a dealbreaker for you?Would arbitrary precision by default bother you for a general-purpose language?I'm not trying to replace anything. This is a learning project that got out of hand.Repo: https://github.com/roriau0422/sfex-langPages: https://roriau0422.github.io/sfex-lang/Honest feedback wanted - including "this is pointless, stop wasting time."
Enrichment
- Theme
- AI agent frameworks and developer tools
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- programming language with context as first-class
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
No Designing and implementing a novel programming language with context-oriented paradigms and non-standard arithmetic semantics requires deep compiler design and language theory expertise.
What it would actually take: A custom programming language requires lexing, parsing (e.g., Chumsky, Nom, or custom Pratt parser in Rust), intermediate representation (IR) design, and a runtime or bytecode VM/LLVM backend. Supporting decimal/rational arithmetic semantics and first-class context-oriented primitives demands novel language mechanics and formal semantics. This necessitates advanced computer science theory and systems programming in Rust.
Discussion
7 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Go (context passing approach), Java (thread-local variables), Lua (1-based indexing comparison)
Concerns raised: Contexts become global state, hard to debug when context switch is far from method call, 1-based indexing causes awkwardness in low-level tasks (binary file decoding), Context-oriented programming may create busywork rather than solve real problems
Feature requests: Block-scoped contexts with automatic revert on indentation exit, Context.Trace() tool to print context stack and where contexts were set, LSP (Language Server Protocol) support with completion and type-on-hover, JSON output of top-level names/types from compiler for editor tooling
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 55 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #30 of 56 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 24 days after the earliest competitor.
- Topaz · hn · 2026-06-18 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- A systems language with runtime reflection and no GC · hn · 2025-12-15 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- Treenix. Typed runtime for humans and agents · hn · 2026-06-15 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- Solnix · hn · 2026-02-08 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- The Taka Programming Language · hn · 2025-12-03 · 12 upvotes · similarity 0.36
- SymDerive · hn · 2026-02-01 · 26 upvotes · similarity 0.36
- MCP file tools silently eat your context window.I built one that doesnt · hn · 2026-03-01 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.36
- Micron: a high performance C++23 (re)implementation of Libc and the STL · hn · 2026-06-05 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.34
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
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