Crystal’s syntax is heavily inspired by Ruby’s, so it feels natural to read and easy to write, and has the added benefit of a lower learning curve for experienced Ruby devs. Crystal is statically type checked, so any type errors will be caught early by the compiler rather than fail on runtime. Moreover, and to keep the language clean, Crystal has built-in type inference, so most type annotations are unneeded. All types are non-nilable in Crystal, and nilable variables are represented as a union between the type and nil. As a consequence, the compiler will automatically check for null references in compile time, helping prevent the dreadful billion-dollar mistake. Crystal’s answer to metaprogramming is a powerful macro system, which ranges from basic templating and AST inspection, to types inspection and running arbitrary external programs. Crystal uses green threads, called fibers, to achieve concurrency. Fibers communicate with each other using channels, as in Go or Clojure.

Features

  • Heavily inspired by Ruby, natural to read and easy to write
  • Type checked, so any type errors will be caught early by the compiler
  • Built-in type inference, so most type annotations are unneeded
  • All types are non-nilable in Crystal
  • Nilable variables are represented as a union between the type and nil
  • Fibers communicate with each other using channels, as in Go or Clojure

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License

Apache License V2.0

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Additional Project Details

Operating Systems

Windows

Registered

2021-03-24