Pyhnic

Pyhnic is a general-purpose programming language designed to combine Python-like readability with optional static typing and improved performance. It runs on a managed runtime that supports both interpretation and ahead-of-time compilation, enabling rapid scripting as well as portable, high-performance binaries.

The project began as an open-source initiative in 2020 and released its first stable version in 2023. It is governed by the Pyhnic Foundation, a community-led organization that coordinates development, documentation, and ecosystem growth.

Key features include gradual typing with type inference, allowing dynamic code to run without annotations while giving strong types where desired. Pyhnic offers robust interoperability with Python through a foreign function interface, facilitating calls to Python libraries and inclusion from Python code. The runtime includes a generational garbage collector and optional manual memory management for performance-critical components. It supports asynchronous programming, lightweight concurrency, and a growing standard library for I/O, networking, data processing, and testing.

Syntax and semantics are indentation-based and resemble Python in structure, with optional type annotations in function signatures and variable declarations. Dataclass-like data structures and pattern matching are supported in recent iterations to enhance expressiveness.

Tooling and ecosystem: a package manager, a static type checker, and a suite of linters accompany the language. Community repositories host third-party libraries, tutorials, and example projects.

Adoption and impact: Pyhnic has found use in education, research prototypes, and some startups seeking rapid development without sacrificing performance. Documentation and community support continue to grow, though its ecosystem remains smaller than Python's.