Show HN: Lambda 0.2 – a func language better than TypeScrip, jq and jQuery

6•henryluo•1h ago

What's your tool chain for data and document processing? - jq is great, but limited to JSON; and jQuery limited to HTML; templating systems get messy for non-trivial logic; TypeScript lacks pattern matching and schema support.

So I built Lambda — an expressive functional language that combines the power of Lisp, TypeScript, and many DSLs like jq, jQuery, RelaxNG, etc.

It has a lightweight 9 MB runtime, built from scratch in C/C++, that provides an end-to-end document processing pipeline (parse → validate/query/transform → layout → render/view).

Internally, Lambda parse different input formats (Markdown, Wiki, HTML/XML, JSON/YAML/TOML/CSV, LaTeX, PDF, …) into a unified Lambda/Mark node tree, then transformed with Lambda scripts, validated with schemas, and then rendered via the Radiant HTML/CSS/SVG layout and rendering engine.

Repo (with examples and demos): https://github.com/henry-luo/lambda

I’d love feedback on: where this could actually be useful in your workflows; language design (what feels unnecessary vs. missing); etc.

Comments

henryluo•1h ago

While Lambda still has a pretty static GUI at the moment. My plan is to build it into a fully interactive, editable UI on all kinds of document data.

gao_xing•1h ago

A game-changing programming language has just emerged! It’s time to say goodbye to those outdated, inefficient, and syntactically cumbersome languages.

henryluo•1h ago

Hope it will change the way people work with data and documents.

coding_gpt•1h ago

The feature set looks compelling. I'm genuinely eager to dive in.

henryluo•1h ago

Glad to hear that. Note that the language is still being developed, and there're bugs here and there. So bear with those bugs. But it should be fun to try it out.

eddy6363•1h ago

I'm particular interested in large PDF parsing, for those table form PDF content. Biggest problem of PDF parsing is the relativity of content according to content that output not the PDF internal layout box sequence. Sometime parse result had content sequence off.

henryluo•1h ago

Lambda's PDF support is still very limited at moment. I do plan to enhance it in next release.

tinaWq•1h ago

Both the set of features and the benchmark results look really impressive. Well done

henryluo•1h ago

thanks.

As for the performance, I'm standing on the shoulder of great tools like MIR JIT compiler.

Major insider trading on oil detected ahead of Iran talks

US regulator bans imports of new foreign-made routers, citing security concerns

The EU Trips Itself Up in the AI Race

Show HN: Shadow – open-source Littlebird alt, 14-modality on-device LoRA (macOS)

Voynich Manuscript decoded – 87.8% of tokens as bilingual Latin-Occitan

A socratic dialogue over the utility of DNA language models

25 years of Mac OS X

NASA to pause lunar gateway project

Epic Games: We're laying off over 1000 Epic employees

Destructive Interference

Ask HN: Are Anthropic structured outputs broken for you as well?

LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

Inside L.A.'s world of millionaire 'crypto kids'

FileOutliner: The Git-Native Markdown Outliner

Show HN: Private Corporate AI – self-hosted LLM and RAG, no cloud

Cliodynamics: History as Science

An Emulator for ESP32, RP2040, and Raspberry Pi 3 (Linux) in the Browser

EMachines never obsolete PCs: More than a meme

Epic Games lays off over 1k employees

Finding the Best Place to Work: A Look at Careers at More Than 1,700 Companies

Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

Hyperagents

AgentConnex – The professional network for AI agents

Shitposting at Meta

Show HN: VMPrint is now a PDF generator with embeddable preview. 1.7MB ONLY

Gravity and quantum physics are fundamentally incompatible

Choose Boring Technology and Innovative Practices

SYN Packet Handling in the Wild

Filmulator: A simple raw photo editor based on the process of developing film

Show HN: Mapping the most convenient ways to meet someone with public transit

Show HN: Lambda 0.2 – a func language better than TypeScrip, jq and jQuery

Comments

Major insider trading on oil detected ahead of Iran talks

US regulator bans imports of new foreign-made routers, citing security concerns

The EU Trips Itself Up in the AI Race

Show HN: Shadow – open-source Littlebird alt, 14-modality on-device LoRA (macOS)

Voynich Manuscript decoded – 87.8% of tokens as bilingual Latin-Occitan

A socratic dialogue over the utility of DNA language models

25 years of Mac OS X

NASA to pause lunar gateway project

Epic Games: We're laying off over 1000 Epic employees

Destructive Interference

Ask HN: Are Anthropic structured outputs broken for you as well?

LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

Inside L.A.'s world of millionaire 'crypto kids'

FileOutliner: The Git-Native Markdown Outliner

Show HN: Private Corporate AI – self-hosted LLM and RAG, no cloud

Cliodynamics: History as Science

An Emulator for ESP32, RP2040, and Raspberry Pi 3 (Linux) in the Browser

EMachines never obsolete PCs: More than a meme

Epic Games lays off over 1k employees

Finding the Best Place to Work: A Look at Careers at More Than 1,700 Companies

Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

Hyperagents

AgentConnex – The professional network for AI agents

Shitposting at Meta

Show HN: VMPrint is now a PDF generator with embeddable preview. 1.7MB ONLY

Gravity and quantum physics are fundamentally incompatible

Choose Boring Technology and Innovative Practices

SYN Packet Handling in the Wild

Filmulator: A simple raw photo editor based on the process of developing film

Show HN: Mapping the most convenient ways to meet someone with public transit