heilurian2

heilurian2 is a cross-platform programming language and runtime designed for distributed and concurrent computing. It is the successor to the original heilurian project and is developed by Helion Labs with contributions from academic partners. The design emphasizes safety, determinism, and predictable performance in multi-node environments.

History and development: Work began in 2020 as a redesign of heilurian. The first stable release, heilurian2 2.0, appeared in 2023, with ongoing minor updates through 2024. The project follows open-source governance and accepts community contributions.

Design and features: heilurian2 combines a statically typed, functional core with an imperative, event-driven surface. It uses an actor-based concurrency model with message passing and a capability-based security model. The language supports algebraic data types, pattern matching, streams, and asynchronous I/O.

Architecture and implementation: The compiler pipeline includes parsing, type checking, an intermediate representation, and backends to LLVM IR or native targets. The runtime provides a distributed task scheduler, isolated execution contexts, and a memory model designed for fault tolerance. A package manager and static analysis tools are included.

Usage and reception: heilurian2 is used in experimental cloud-native projects, distributed simulations, and academic research. Advocates cite safety and deterministic behavior; critics note a small ecosystem, limited libraries, and a learning curve.