Red programming language
Shares rank 121 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Recommended for powerful DSL creation, native AOT compilation and homoiconic design; critics note it is incomplete compared with Rebol and lacks self-bootstrapping.
Recommended for powerful DSL creation, native AOT compilation and homoiconic design; critics note it is incomplete compared with Rebol and lacks self-bootstrapping.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: 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
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, 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
Good for building DSLs
“red's ability to create powerful DSLs without having to parse everything manually is very interesting here”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Red Programming Language: Static linking support” “it can AOT compile to native, it's homoiconic, it has a built-in Parse dialect”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Red Programming Language: Static linking support” “really interesting language and seemingly a good fit for an internal shell DSL”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Red Programming Language: Static linking support” Seen as an interesting language
“i actually find red in particular one of the more interesting languages”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Red Programming Language: Static linking support” “Red does look like one of the better candidates”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Red Programming Language: Static linking support”
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
14 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Main difference is that there is a GUI available in Red.”
“the REBOL3 fiasco, the proprietary nature of REBOL2”
“red's ability to create powerful DSLs without having to parse everything manually is very interesting here”
“really interesting language and seemingly a good fit for an internal shell DSL”
“so i am very happy to see a high level language get that potential”
“Red does look like one of the better candidates”
“I always love to see Rebol and Red mentioned anywhere”
“i actually find red in particular one of the more interesting languages”
“it can AOT compile to native, it's homoiconic, it has a built-in Parse dialect”
“it's hard to justify investing more time into learning Red in particular.”
“Always nice to see Red updates”
“it doesn't seem to go anywhere”
“The main issue is the lack of self-bootstrapping.”
“It still isn't complete like Rebol though last time I checked.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.