CPlike

CPlike is a fictional programming language presented as a design study to explore how C-like syntax can be extended with modern safety and tooling while preserving low-level control. It is described as a statically typed, compiled language intended for systems programming, embedded development, and performance-critical applications, with an emphasis on predictable behavior and a clear ABI compatibility with C.

Design goals and features

CPlike aims to offer familiar C-inspired syntax alongside optional safety features. It supports manual memory management, explicit pointers, structs, unions, and inline assembly, but introduces optional safety checks that can be enabled or disabled. A borrow- and ownership-style mechanism is described as an optional compile-time analysis that enforces safe access patterns without imposing a heavy runtime cost. The language also features a modular compile model, deterministic destructors, and a straightforward foreign function interface (FFI) to interoperate with C and other low-level languages.

Tooling and ecosystem

A reference compiler and toolchain are described as providing ahead-of-time compilation, cross-compilation, and a minimal runtime. Debugging, profiling, and static analysis tools are highlighted as core parts of the ecosystem, aiming to help developers reason about memory use and performance. The project currency is a lightweight package manager and a standard library focused on low-level utilities, I/O, and concurrency primitives.

Reception and status

CPlike is presented as a conceptual or aspirational project rather than a widely adopted language. It is used in educational contexts and as a theoretical example for comparing language design choices in the space of C-like systems programming languages.

See also

C, C++, Rust, D language, systems programming languages.

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