Vera programming language
Shares rank 149 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Experimental language built for LLM coding agents, praised for its design effort, compiler guarantees and feedback loop. Critics say removing variable names hurts readability and model performance.
Experimental language built for LLM coding agents, praised for its design effort, compiler guarantees and feedback loop. Critics say removing variable names hurts readability and model performance.
23 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 18
- approval share
- 22%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not 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
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 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
Design effort and ideas praised
“as close to English as you can get with the compiler guarantees offered by Vera”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “The strongest idea here, IMO, is not the syntax but the feedback loop”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “I do applaud the lang design effort”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” - Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Removing variable names hurts readability
“The major design decision I'm a little skeptical about is removing variable names”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “It feels wrong to dump identifiers to save tokens: now they're devoid of semantics, and can't be grep'ed or mapped to concepts.”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “There's a reason variable names are a thing in programming, and that's to semantically convey meaning.”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” - Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write”
- Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write”
- Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write”
- Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write”
Design rationale seen as misguided
“The only way the author could have come up with that rationale is that he doesn't understand what a token is”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “The lack of naming seems to indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of how LLM coding agents are successful”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “Seems like a weird decision taken from a weird paper that make everything harder for humans AND llms.”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” - Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write”
- Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write”
Unfamiliar syntax, untrained for LLMs
“a vibe-coded and vibe-desinged language which effectively does not exist yet”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “LLMs are good at writing programming languages they already know”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “syntax unlike anything it’s been trained on.”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” Hallucination risk with less context
“For Vera, not having names removes key information that the model would have”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write” “Good luck managing hallucinations on that context”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Vera: a programming language designed for machines to write”
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
21 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Seems like a weird decision taken from a weird paper that make everything harder for humans AND llms.”
“I think Vera might be missing something here.”
“The strongest idea here, IMO, is not the syntax but the feedback loop”
“I do applaud the lang design effort”
“If it's incomprehensible to humans, it must be perfect for LLMs. Never mind the training.”
“The only way the author could have come up with that rationale is that he doesn't understand what a token is”
“It feels wrong to dump identifiers to save tokens: now they're devoid of semantics, and can't be grep'ed or mapped to concepts.”
“Removing variable names seems utter madness.”
“syntax unlike anything it’s been trained on.”
“as close to English as you can get with the compiler guarantees offered by Vera”
“The human won't be able to read the code and steer the model.”
“So there are variable names, they’re just inscrutable context dependent numbers.”
“a vibe-coded and vibe-desinged language which effectively does not exist yet”
“Good luck managing hallucinations on that context”
“I love the ## Why README section!”
“LLMs are good at writing programming languages they already know”
“The lack of naming seems to indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of how LLM coding agents are successful”
“There's a reason variable names are a thing in programming, and that's to semantically convey meaning.”
“For Vera, not having names removes key information that the model would have”
“The major design decision I'm a little skeptical about is removing variable names”
“This bit just feels like obfuscation for obfustcation’s sake.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.