Show HN: Tight C, a systems language with 10 keywords
Key takeaways
- Simplest possible, usable systems language
- Tight-C is a minimal systems programming language that compiles to C.
- make # Build tcc make clean # Remove build artifacts Philosophy Everything that can be built in the stdlib has to.
Simplest possible, usable systems language
Tight-C is a minimal systems programming language that compiles to C. It has 10 keywords, no garbage collector, no inference, no OOP — just explicit, predictable code with C-level power.
10 keywords — if, loop, break, defer, ret, struct, fn, use, pub, pin No hidden magic — no GC, no type inference, no shadowing, no aliasing Raw pointers (->) and fat pointers (=>) with built-in slicing Manual memory — alloc() / free() with defer for cleanup Packed structs — no padding, predictable layout C FFI — extern "C" for direct interop Compiles to C11 — readable output, use any C toolchain Quick Start # Build the compiler make # Compile stdlib ./tcc stdlib/io.tc -o stdlib/io.h # Compile a program ./tcc samples/fizzbuzz.tc -o fizzbuzz.c # Build and run gcc fizzbuzz.c -std=c11 -o fizzbuzz ./fizzbuzz Hello World use "stdlib/io.tc" void fn main: { print("hello, world") } Syntax Overview Variables i32 x = 10 f64 pi = 3.14 u8 byte Uninitialized variables default to 0.