Roadmap · from v0.14.0 to 1.0
The road to Alice 1.0.
Writes like Ruby, runs like C, and bugs don’t compile. One language from low level (FFI, native kernels, unsafe, stack and arena memory) to high level (web, desktop, games, data), on .NET and on WebAssembly, with a standard library that is better than the BCL where the BCL is weak.
In progress
- In progress
Benchmarks against Bend 2 and C
All 16 workloads of Bend’s runtime suite ported 1:1, measured on 1 core and on all cores against the C versions. Alice beats Bend’s parallel numbers and matches serial C on every workload, or the gap has a named cause and a tracked fix (arena-backed sum types for trees, new compute primitives for histogram-style kernels).
- In progress
Security and feature audit
A review of the compiler, runtime, CLI, installers, package and toolchain downloads, FFI, unsafe code and the rule checker. Every finding fixed or documented as a known limit in the production-readiness guide.
- In progress
Ruby and Crystal completeness
Close the gap list against Crystal and Ruby (macros, union types, enums with values, named arguments, splats, string formatting, Comparable and Enumerable, ensure and retry, and more), or reject each item with a written reason.
- In progress
Compiling straight to .NET bytecode
Alice compiles directly to .NET bytecode with debug symbols, instead of going through generated C#, for faster builds and faster code. The C# output stays for readable interop and as a cross-check; every program in the test corpus must print exactly the same results.
Next
- Next
Alice Core: a standard library beyond the BCL
Allocation-free SIMD regex (compiled at build time for literal patterns) and SIMD JSON come first, then text, HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, sockets, files, processes, time, digests, CSV and TOML. Each must beat its BCL equivalent on the suite.
Later
- Later
Bytecode quality
Compiled code within 3% of hand-written C# on the suite, passing the .NET verifier, with debug symbols, NativeAOT and deterministic builds.
- Later
WebAssembly as a first-class target
Pure Alice code compiles to WebAssembly without the .NET runtime, for the browser and WASI, with size and startup measured against .NET and Rust output. Today’s kind = "wasm" packages keep the .NET interop path.
- Later
Domains
Verified samples and docs for network services (HTTP, websockets, TCP), desktop apps with packaging, games, CLI tools, data work and low-level code.
Before 1.0
- Before 1.0
Product
Complete book and built-in guide, signed installers, Linux arm64 and Alpine archives, editor extensions, language server, playground, release notes and the 1.0 announcement.
Ground rules
- Benchmarks report cold-process and warm numbers, with checksums, and never compare across machines.
- The compiler only runs code in parallel when the pieces cannot touch the same data, and never trades safety for a benchmark.
- Every change ships with tests and a changelog entry.
What already shipped is in the changelog.