Skip to content

Announce 0.6.0 on the website #96

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
ademar merged 1 commit into from
Aug 23, 2026
Merged

Announce 0.6.0 on the website #96

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
23 changes: 23 additions & 0 deletions website/assets/site.css
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -155,6 +155,29 @@ img {
color: var(--copper);
}

.hero-news {
margin: 0 0 1.4rem;
font-size: 0.95rem;
}
.hero-news a {
display: inline-block;
padding: 0.45rem 1rem;
border: 1px solid var(--line);
border-radius: 999px;
background: var(--bg-2);
color: var(--mute);
text-decoration: none;
transition: border-color 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease;
}
.hero-news a:hover {
border-color: var(--copper);
color: var(--ink);
}
.hero-news strong {
color: var(--copper-hot);
font-weight: 600;
}

.hero-lead {
max-width: 34rem;
margin: 0 0 2rem;
Expand Down
6 changes: 6 additions & 0 deletions website/index.html
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -30,6 +30,12 @@

<main>
<section class="hero wrap">
<p class="hero-news">
<a href="news/ironkernel-0.6.0.html"
><strong>New</strong> · IronKernel 0.6.0 — the editor release: a language server,
recovering diagnostics, and sessions →</a
>
</p>
<h1 class="hero-brand">Iron<span>Kernel</span></h1>
<p class="hero-lead">
A Kernel programming language for the CLR — where combiners and environments are first-class,
Expand Down
173 changes: 173 additions & 0 deletions website/news/ironkernel-0.6.0.html
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
<title>IronKernel 0.6.0 — the editor release</title>
<meta
name="description"
content="IronKernel 0.6.0: a language server that resolves instead of guessing, structured diagnostics with reader recovery, environment introspection, and a persistent evaluation session."
/>
<link rel="icon" href="../assets/ironkernel-mark.png" type="image/png" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../assets/site.css" />
</head>
<body>
<header class="nav">
<div class="wrap nav-inner">
<a class="brand" href="../index.html">
<img src="../assets/ironkernel-mark.png" alt="" width="32" height="32" />
IronKernel
</a>
<ul class="nav-links">
<li><a href="../docs/getting-started.html">Start</a></li>
<li><a href="../docs/intro.html">Intro</a></li>
<li><a href="../docs/guide.html">Guide</a></li>
<li><a href="../docs/operators.html">Operators</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/ironkernel-lang/IronKernel">GitHub</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</header>

<div class="wrap docs-shell">
<aside class="docs-side">
<h2>News</h2>
<ol>
<li><a href="ironkernel-0.6.0.html" aria-current="page">0.6.0 — the editor release</a></li>
</ol>
<h2 style="margin-top: 1.5rem">On this page</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#lsp">A language server in the runtime</a></li>
<li><a href="#diagnostics">Diagnostics that recover</a></li>
<li><a href="#environments">The environment, visible</a></li>
<li><a href="#sessions">Sessions</a></li>
<li><a href="#packages">Two new packages</a></li>
<li><a href="#breaking">One breaking change</a></li>
<li><a href="#get">Get it</a></li>
</ul>
</aside>

<article class="docs-main">
<h1>IronKernel 0.6.0 — the editor release</h1>
<p class="lede">
<em>2026-08-23.</em> This release turns the runtime’s own machinery outward into tooling:
a language server that <strong>resolves</strong> instead of guessing, diagnostics that survive
a half-typed buffer, environments you can finally see, and a persistent evaluation session.
The design is recorded in
<a href="https://github.com/ironkernel-lang/IronKernel/blob/master/docs/adr/0009-editor-tooling-from-the-runtime-outward.md">ADR 0009 — editor tooling grows from the runtime outward</a>,
and every piece below is a phase of it.
</p>

<h2 id="lsp">A language server in the runtime</h2>
<p>
<code>ik lsp</code> starts a Language Server Protocol server <em>inside</em> the IronKernel
binary — the same parser, analyzer, and bootstrapped environment your programs use. The
distinction that defines Kernel finally shows up correctly in your editor: operatives and
applicatives are colored by <strong>resolving the binding</strong>, not by matching a name
list. Define your own operative and it gets the operative color at every use site:
</p>
<div class="example">
<p class="example-caption">semantic tokens know what twice is</p>
<pre><code>(define twice (vau (x) e (eval x e) (eval x e)))
(twice (print "again")) ; twice colors as an operative — it is one</code></pre>
</div>
<p>
Hover shows a combiner’s contract — <code>(+ number number …) → number — pure, certified</code> —
completion offers what is actually in scope (your buffer’s defines included), and diagnostics
arrive on every keystroke. The VS Code extension starts the server automatically in trusted
workspaces; any editor that speaks LSP can do the same.
</p>

<h2 id="diagnostics">Diagnostics that recover</h2>
<p>
<code>ik check --json</code> emits machine-readable diagnostics with exact source spans — a
versioned contract shared by the language server and anything else you build. And the reader
now <strong>recovers</strong>: a broken form no longer swallows the rest of the file. Every
broken region reports its own error, the forms that parse still produce trees, and the form
you are actively typing is completed with its unclosed brackets so completion and highlighting
keep working mid-edit.
</p>
<div class="example">
<p class="example-caption">every region, not just the first</p>
<pre><code class="language-bash">$ ik check broken.ikr
Check error: broken.ikr:1:1: Parse error: …
Check error: broken.ikr:3:1: Parse error: …</code></pre>
</div>

<h2 id="environments">The environment, visible</h2>
<p>
Three new applicatives — extensions alongside <code>clr-opens</code>, available under every
profile — make environments inspectable from Kernel:
</p>
<div class="example">
<p class="example-caption">enumeration, not authority</p>
<pre><code>(environment-local-symbols e) ; the frame's own bindings, sorted
(environment-symbols e) ; everything visible from e
(environment-capabilities e) ; e.g. (host-io (generated-clr "safe"))</code></pre>
</div>
<p>
They return <em>names and information, never parent environments as values</em> — the
environment type stays encapsulated, so visibility does not become mutation authority.
On top of them: <strong>tab completion in the REPL</strong>, an <strong>environment view</strong>
in VS Code (capabilities, your buffer’s frame, and every frame beneath it, contracts as
tooltips), and a <strong>profile status bar</strong> that shows the active capability profile —
and flags when it overrides the project’s own <code>&lt;IronKernelProfile&gt;</code>.
</p>

<h2 id="sessions">Sessions</h2>
<p>
<code>ik session</code> is a persistent evaluation session over framed JSON-RPC: definitions
persist between evals, everything the program prints travels in the response, and errors are
structured data — message, rendered diagnostic, and spans — instead of text folded into
stdout. In VS Code, <strong>Eval Selection in Session</strong> gives you a REPL that lives
inside your editing session. The debug adapter will ride this protocol; the ADR records
exactly what it still needs.
</p>

<h2 id="packages">Two new packages</h2>
<p>
<a href="https://github.com/ironkernel-lang/IronKernel/tree/master/lib/IronKernel.Math">IronKernel.Math</a>
brings statistics, combinatorics, and number theory — exact wherever the mathematics allows:
means as ratios, <code>isqrt</code> and <code>factorial</code> at any size, primes and
factorizations.
<a href="https://github.com/ironkernel-lang/IronKernel/tree/master/lib/IronKernel.Time">IronKernel.Time</a>
brings dates and durations over <code>System.DateTime</code>/<code>System.TimeSpan</code>,
with UTC-disciplined instants the arithmetic tower adds and subtracts directly.
</p>

<h2 id="breaking">One breaking change</h2>
<p>
<code>show</code> now <strong>renders a value to a string</strong> instead of printing it —
what its name always promised. It is pure, needs no host authority, and works under every
profile. Code that used bare <code>(show x)</code> to print should say what it means:
</p>
<div class="example">
<p class="example-caption">rendering and printing are two jobs</p>
<pre><code>(show (list 1 2)) ; ⇒ "(1 2)" — a string, nothing printed
(print (show (list 1 2))) ; prints (1 2) — the idiom that used to be an arity error</code></pre>
</div>

<h2 id="get">Get it</h2>
<p>
Self-contained binaries for Linux, Windows, and macOS (arm64 and x64) — plus the
<code>ik</code> tool and SDK packages — are attached to the
<a href="https://github.com/ironkernel-lang/IronKernel/releases/tag/v0.6.0">v0.6.0 release</a>.
The VS Code extension builds on every push; grab the VSIX from CI and install it with
<em>Extensions: Install from VSIX…</em> — see the
<a href="../docs/getting-started.html">getting-started guide</a> for runtime discovery.
</p>

<p>
<a href="../index.html">← Back to ironkernel.org</a>
</p>
</article>
</div>

<footer class="footer">
<div class="wrap">
<span>IronKernel — Apache 2.0</span>
<span><a href="../docs/intro.html">Docs</a> · <a href="https://github.com/ironkernel-lang/IronKernel">GitHub</a></span>
</div>
</footer>
<script src="../assets/site.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
Loading