r/YonLang•
anthem_reb

Every reserved word of Yon, explained for the most part next to a compiling example, plus a self-contained build (no Python)

Two updates landed on yon-lang.org this weekend.

**The Keywords chapter.** The book has a new chapter, still not indexed but available, "Keywords, one by one": all 115 reserved words of the language, each with its own explanation and a compiling example next to it.

https://yon-lang.org/book/keywords

The examples are not illustrative pseudocode: every snippet on the page is a file from `examples/` in the repository, it builds and runs in the regression suite, and the exit code and stdout shown in each window were captured by actually running the binary. Coverage is checked mechanically against the lexer, so the page cannot silently drift from the grammar. The Syntax Reference gained an alphabetical index linking every keyword to its explanation.

**A self-contained build.** The mathematical core of the runtime (Golay code and Leech lattice, the machinery behind the content-addressed heap and its single-comparison equality) used to be linked from the `mmgroup` Python package. It is now vendored in the repository (BSD-2-Clause, with provenance notes) and built by the runtime Makefile like any other C file.

The practical consequence: no Python anywhere in the toolchain. Building Yon is one round of prerequisites and three builds (C runtime, OCaml frontend, MLIR dialect), the same commands on Linux and macOS, and a Yon binary depends on libc and libpthread only.

https://yon-lang.org/book/installation

The regression suite (126 examples plus two cross-process scenarios) runs green on Linux x86-64 and macOS Apple Silicon.

**Language notes from the same batch:** the merge move now has a surface call (`Move.merge(m, s1, s2)`), view declarations with `show` clauses compile to record constructors, and the path fragment landed: `refl` values bind, `ind_path` computes on `refl` at the call site, and a J stuck on a non-trivial path is rejected at compile time, so the runtime never decides path equality.

Repository: https://github.com/yon-language/yon

Feedback welcome.

Posted Jun 7, 2026, 7:04 AM UTC

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