The Q Programming Language

Features · Quickstart · Examples · Docs

A minimal, dependency-free language that compiles to tiny, fast machine code.

Features

• 🚄 High performance (comparable to C and Go)
• 🚀 Fast compilation (5-10x faster than most compilers)
• 📦 Lightweight executables (1 KB for simple programs)
• 🔍 Static analysis (integrated linter catches common mistakes)
• 🛡️ Pointer safety (pointers cannot be nil)
• ♻️ Resource safety (use-after-free is a compile error)
• 🧠 Simple syntax (control flow is easily understood)
• 💬 Friendly errors (clear and concise compiler messages)
• 🌐 General purpose (apps, servers, games, kernels, etc.)
• 🧩 Multiple architectures (x86-64 and arm64)
• 🖥️ Multiple platforms (Linux, Mac and Windows)
• 📖 Readable source (less than 1% of LLVM's code size)
• 🧘 Zero dependencies (no external tools or libraries)

Quickstart

Warning

Q is in early development. Design and implementation are changing continuously.

Install

git clone https://git.urbach.dev/cli/q
cd q
go build
ln -s $PWD/q ~/.local/bin/

Run

q examples/hello

Build

q build examples/hello

Cross-compile with -os:

q build examples/hello -os windows

Inspect

q ssa examples/hello   # SSA form
q asm examples/hello   # Assembly output

Examples

hello

import io

main() {
	io.write("Hello\n")
}

echo

echo() {
	buffer := new(byte, 4096)

	loop {
		n, _ := io.read(buffer)

		if n == 0 {
			return
		}

		io.write(buffer[..n])
	}
}

fibonacci

fibonacci(n int) -> int {
	if n <= 1 {
		return n
	}

	return fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2)
}

fizzbuzz

fizzbuzz(x int) {
	switch {
		x % 15 == 0 { io.write("FizzBuzz") }
		x % 5 == 0  { io.write("Buzz") }
		x % 3 == 0  { io.write("Fizz") }
		_           { io.write(x) }
	}
}

See more in the examples directory.

Docs

• Motivation
• Design
• Reference
• Source
• Changes
• Security
• Contributing
• FAQ

Community

• IRC
• Discord

Donate

• GitHub
• Kofi

License

See the license documentation.

Copyright

© 2025 Eduard Urbach