Jolt: Clojure compiler implemented with Chez Scheme

 (jolt-lang.github.io)

45 points | by mark_l_watson 3 days ago

8 comments

  • pmkary 16 minutes ago
    How many years have it been there? My memory reminds me of Jolt but I very hardly remember what was it, all I remember is that it was a LISP.
  • nucleogenesis 44 minutes ago
    What a wonderful excuse to dive back into Clojure! This looks fantastic. I wonder what neat stuff might be made in Clojure thanks to a C FFI that wasn’t doable on top of the JVM.
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    • pjmlp 26 minutes ago
      Note that nowadays with Panama, there are more FFI opportunities in JVM implementations as well.

      Although it is rather verbose, and it is easier to have a C header and run jextract on it, instead of the manual boilerplate.

      No idea how well AI tooling would manage.

    • busterarm 40 minutes ago
      I've been diving back into Clojure just recently and this will be something I'll be trying to use immediatley.
  • kccqzy 47 minutes ago
    I understand some don’t like having a JVM, but for running in the browser, what does Jolt on Gambit offer over plain ClojureScript?
  • ivanjermakov 1 hour ago
    Jolt Physics: https://github.com/jrouwe/JoltPhysics
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    • eggy 42 minutes ago
      What does this have to do with Jolt, the Clojure compiler other than in name? Is there a port to Clojure or other connection?
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      • Ohentis 38 minutes ago
        I think the name being the same is worth bringing up. Ideally you would avoid name collisions with big projects but admittedly it does happen all the time.
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        • pjmlp 30 minutes ago
          There are other collisions, like Jolt computer, Dr Dobbs Jolt awards.

          However to be fair, none of it came to mind when I saw the title.

  • pjmlp 35 minutes ago
    Nice to see further adoption from Chez Scheme.

    Have to give it a try.

  • tosh 50 minutes ago
    it's good to have even more (and more slim!) ways to run Clojure

    (not just JVM and JavaScript runtimes)

  • mark_l_watson 3 days ago
    I just saw this - works great to build small self contained apps. (I just tested on macOS, also supports Linux).
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    • mark_l_watson 3 days ago
      Clojure hosted on Chez Scheme (same as Racket). So cool. I tried building a standalone executable for the Chess game in my Clojure book using "jolt build -m chess-game.cli -o chess_jolt" and it simply worked great.

      I tried again with a datomic demo and it needed the source code to the open source version of datomic, so I need to do some work on that.

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      • eggy 44 minutes ago
        Curious about the executable size and performance. Mark, you started me on AI with your, "Common LISP Modules: Artificial Intelligence in the Era of Neural Networks and Chaos Theory". I have never been able to fully leave Lisp behind. I'll have to try this on my linux box. What's your take on using jolt practically for work vs. learning? Thanks!
  • yogthos 1 hour ago
    Author here, glad to answer any questions about Jolt.
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    • micro2588 40 minutes ago
      Awesome work, have you looked into using Racket's fork of Chez? It supports some additional extensions and architectures from base Chez that would seem to beneficial as a compiler target, at least that was the case a couple years ago.
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      • yogthos 30 minutes ago
        Thanks, and I have good news on that front actually. I recently factored out a portable Scheme layer and got Jolt to compile against Gambit as a backend. And given that Racket is basically an extension of Chez, it should be trivial to build against it now.

        I wrote up a post on how this works here https://yogthos.net/posts/2026-08-07-portable-jolt.html

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        • micro2588 23 minutes ago
          Really cool, I see now that most all the the Racket extensions to Chez have been up-streamed which is positive for the health of both projects.
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          • yogthos 12 minutes ago
            Indeed, it's a nice ecosystem to be part of. :)