Hi everyone,
This has been a long path. Releasing this makes me both happy and anxious.
Today I’m introducing Aether, a compiled programming language built around the actor model and designed for high-performance concurrent systems.
Repository
https://github.com/nicolasmd87/aether
Documentation
https://github.com/nicolasmd87/aether/tree/main/docs
Aether is open source and available on GitHub.
Overview
Aether treats concurrency as a core language concern rather than a library feature.
The programming model is based on actors and message passing, with isolation enforced at the language level. Developers do not manage threads or locks directly — the runtime handles scheduling, message delivery, and multi-core execution.
The compiler targets readable C code, which:
- Keeps the toolchain portable
- Allows straightforward interoperability with existing C libraries
- Makes the generated output fully inspectable
Runtime Architecture
The runtime is designed with scalability and low contention in mind. It includes:
- Lock-free SPSC (single-producer, single-consumer) queues for actor communication
- Per-core actor queues to minimize synchronization overhead
- Work-stealing fallback scheduling for load balancing
- Adaptive batching of messages under load
- Zero-copy messaging where possible
- NUMA-aware allocation strategies
- Arena allocators and memory pools
- Built-in benchmarking tools for measuring actor and message throughput
The objective is to scale concurrent workloads across cores without exposing low-level synchronization primitives to the developer.
Language and Tooling
Aether supports type inference with optional annotations.
The CLI toolchain provides integrated:
- Project management
- Build
- Run
- Test
- Package
All as part of the standard distribution.
The documentation covers:
- Language semantics
- Compiler design
- Runtime internals
- Architectural decisions
Current Status
Aether is actively evolving.
The compiler, runtime, and CLI are functional and suitable for experimentation and systems-oriented development.
Current work focuses on:
- Refining the concurrency model
- Validating performance characteristics
- Improving ergonomics
Feedback Welcome
I would greatly appreciate feedback on:
- The language design
- Actor semantics
- Runtime architecture (queue design, scheduling strategy)
- Overall usability
Thank you for taking the time to read.
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