Zane is a systems programming language built around a simple idea: the compiler should keep the intent you wrote down, and turn strictness into performance instead of ceremony. It gives you deterministic, garbage‑collection‑free memory management without giving up safety.
Zane gives inherited language design no special authority. Existing languages are things to investigate, not templates to follow. Every feature and restriction is expected to earn its place from first principles rather than from convention.
That also means making deliberately strong claims. Strong claims are easy to falsify; when one breaks, the counterexample exposes a requirement the design was missing. Zane's own decisions are subject to the same treatment — nothing is preserved merely because we already designed it that way.
The longer reasoning, including the bets that survived and the ones that did not, lives in the specification's design stories.
| Repository | What it is |
|---|---|
| spec | The language specification and its design stories. |
| compiler | The Zane compiler and command‑line interface. |
| coda | The Coda configuration format for Zane — a compact, readable alternative to JSON. |
| tree-sitter-coda | A Tree‑sitter grammar for Coda. |
| website | The Zane website. |
| docs | Documentation for the language and tooling. |
| logos | The official Zane logos and brand assets. |
Zane is an open project and contributions are welcome — issues, pull requests, and discussion all help. Start with the contributing guide and the code of conduct, then pick a repository above and dive in.