Nanolang
Shares rank 82 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Clean, small experimental language with fewer traps, which a capable LLM can learn from its docs and compiler. Critics doubt a new language is worth it for LLMs.
Clean, small experimental language with fewer traps, which a capable LLM can learn from its docs and compiler. Critics doubt a new language is worth it for LLMs.
22 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 64%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Clean, clear design with fewer traps
“Really clean language where the design decisions have led to fewer traps”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” “it did look extremely clear”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” Familiar C-like syntax with Scheme
“c-like function signatures and structs with Sexpr bodies and this will anger some homomorphism nerds. I love it.”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” “The syntax looks like C and Scheme had an illegitimate child together.”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Why not use an existing language
“it seems like a nice little language but wouldn't it make more sense to target already existing”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” “I'm still skeptical of the value add having to teaching a custom language to an LLM”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” “i dont think the overhead of inventing a new language makes up for the lack of data around it”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” Design rationale for LLMs unexplained
“the rationale that is better for LLMs is based on vibes really”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” “docs are LLM generated, no explanation or justification for how this was designed to be targeted for LLMs”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” Little training data and fundamentals
“Where are the millions lines of code needed to train LLM in this Nanolang?”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs” “This seems like a research dead end to me, the fundamentals are not there”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs”
Other programming languages people recommend
The four most recommended other programming languages, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 163 programming languages, rankedWhat people said
20 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“You might find inspiration from Jordan Hubbard's nanolang project”
“always report line numbers accurately and also have a built-in "trace mode"”
“The syntax looks like C and Scheme had an illegitimate child together.”
“I don't see this language fixing this, but it's not trying to—it just seems to be removing cruft”
“`fn` is bad , braces are bad and it won't be useful to do anything for a long time”
“it seems like a nice little language but wouldn't it make more sense to target already existing”
“Where are the millions lines of code needed to train LLM in this Nanolang?”
“there was nothing nano about that language at all”
“It wasn't designed, it accreted features and was a fever dream I couldn't seem to stop having.”
“Key Features; Prefix Notation”
“I for one find this a great try, a very interesting project.”
“i dont think the overhead of inventing a new language makes up for the lack of data around it”
“This seems like a research dead end to me, the fundamentals are not there”
“docs are LLM generated, no explanation or justification for how this was designed to be targeted for LLMs”
“c-like function signatures and structs with Sexpr bodies and this will anger some homomorphism nerds. I love it.”
“the rationale that is better for LLMs is based on vibes really”
“Really clean language where the design decisions have led to fewer traps”
“a good LLM can definitely figure out how to use this thing given access to the existing documentation and the ability to run that compiler”
“it did look extremely clear”
“I'm still skeptical of the value add having to teaching a custom language to an LLM”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.