Roc programming language
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 66 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Recommended for a strong mix of runtime performance, compile speed, type system, error handling and ergonomics; main caveat is it is pre-0.1 with compiler crashes and syntax changes.
Recommended for a strong mix of runtime performance, compile speed, type system, error handling and ergonomics; main caveat is it is pre-0.1 with compiler crashes and syntax changes.
22 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, 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
Strong error handling
“Roc really hits the sweet spot of: runtime performance, compilation speed, strong type system, error handling, and ergonomics”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “How Our Rust-to-Zig Rewrite Is Going” “I think it has the best error handling of any language in the ~3 dozen I've tried.”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “How Our Rust-to-Zig Rewrite Is Going” Runtime performance and ergonomics
“Roc really hits the sweet spot of: runtime performance, compilation speed, strong type system, error handling, and ergonomics”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “How Our Rust-to-Zig Rewrite Is Going” “functional compiled language with good performance and Ruby ergonomics”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “How close can pure functional programming get to C?” Friendly, Elm-inspired language design
“worth checking out if you are interested in a modern Elm-inspired lang”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “EYG: A Programming Language for Humans” “really hit the "friendly" part for a functional language”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “How Our Rust-to-Zig Rewrite Is Going” “I'm enjoying myself and I do like the language design.”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “How Our Rust-to-Zig Rewrite Is Going” Appealing ideas and philosophy
“The Roc language had something similiar with platforms and I love that idea!”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)” “like a lot of the ideas you have in Roc”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Blorp Language” “I quite like Roc's philosophy here”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “The JavaScript Oxidation Compiler”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Pre-0.1, not ready for production
“it's a pre-0.1.0 language and as such its production usage is extremely minimal for now”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Malicious Rust Crate Arrayref Runs a Build-Time Payload” “pre-0.1, pushing the compiler leads to crashes”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Kandelo – a POSIX-compatible multi-process WASM kernel for the browser” “Not yet because it's pre-0.1.”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “The history of C# and TypeScript with Anders Hejlsberg | GitHub” - Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Lightpanda migrate DOM implementation to Zig”
Compiler crashes
“still has compiler crashes, there's a good reason it hasn't had a real release”
Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “What's the best programming language for coding agents?” “The Roc language had something similiar with platforms and I love that idea!”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)” “willing to deal with compiler crashes and regular syntax/feature changes”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “How close can pure functional programming get to C?” - Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Kandelo – a POSIX-compatible multi-process WASM kernel for the browser”
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
All 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“With a clear separation of side effects from the rest of the codebase, you can sleep much better”
“It now uses 10x less RAM, bundle is half the size”
“functional compiled language with good performance and Ruby ergonomics”
“willing to deal with compiler crashes and regular syntax/feature changes”
“it has interesting properties, so I would recommend experimenting with it”
“Fairly ideal as a human-agent collaborative language.”
“pre-0.1, pushing the compiler leads to crashes”
“it's a pre-0.1.0 language and as such its production usage is extremely minimal for now”
“still has compiler crashes, there's a good reason it hasn't had a real release”
“worth checking out if you are interested in a modern Elm-inspired lang”
“that'll enable nicer APIs and fewer workarounds”
“Roc really hits the sweet spot of: runtime performance, compilation speed, strong type system, error handling, and ergonomics”
“I'm enjoying myself and I do like the language design.”
“I think it has the best error handling of any language in the ~3 dozen I've tried.”
“really hit the "friendly" part for a functional language”
“very grating to have the type definition on a separate line”
“Would be much more cooler.”
“Roc seems to compile at around 15k lines per second. That is not fast.”
“like a lot of the ideas you have in Roc”
“roc lang looks very interesting”
“The Roc devs came to a similar conclusion”
“Are you aware that your Github README doesn't actually tell us anything about Roc is or why we might be interested?”
“I quite like Roc's philosophy here”
“Not yet because it's pre-0.1.”
“This one is far from prod-ready however”
“Roc is very cool nonetheless.”
“If you're feeling adventurous and would like to try Roc's new compiler”
“The Roc language had something similiar with platforms and I love that idea!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.