Wake up babe, new javascript framework has been launched!
Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
161–168 of 168 posts
Re: Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
#162I’m not that deep in the JS ecosystem or runtimes, but I’m a little surprised by some of the claims here about being smaller, having fast starts, sandboxing, performance-competitive, etc. Does anyone have a sense of what insights, design choices, big bets, etc, unlock all these advantages against already mature and highly optimised JS stacks?
This project appears to be an LLM-rewritten Elk ( https://github.com/cesanta/elk ), as noted elsewhere in the thread. That project was established in 2019.
Thanks - so much easier to understand what Elk is (and why it is) than Ant.
Re: Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or if you have only started in the last few years and never heard of those older projects.
And could not be bothered to make the tiniest cursory check to see if the name was already in use by a well known project.
It's pretty difficult to tell whether something is, or was at some point, a well known project. Things that were major 20 years ago but are no longer used tend to become invisible since search engines prioritize recent knowledge.
For example, I think young developers would not know that SOAP was a major, like really major, technology in the 2000's. If you google for SOAP now, you get "cleaning products" mostly, and if you're lucky a single mention of the protocol - but unless you dig deeper, it's hard to find out it was actually THE industry standard for web services at some point.
IMO it's exactly the same with Ant (I used Apache Ant a lot in my early days as a dev!! But I've seen how very few Java devs know it these days, it's one of those things only the older guys know, plus a few younger one who have an interest in build systems in general and their history).
Re: Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
#164[flagged]
Re: Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
#165Cannot access the web site: whatwg cartel web engine only. Is antjs coded in plain and simple C?
Seems like so: https://github.com/theMackabu/ant Odd choice for a vibecoded project.
> Odd choice for a vibecoded project.
I'm using coding agents to accelerate implementation, not to replace understanding or review. The architecture, technical decisions, testing, and final responsibility are still mine, so I don't think "vibecoded" is an accurate description here.
Re: Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> now nothing goes past me unreviewed and untested So it's not hand-built?
OP, you will get a much better reception if you clarify that "hand built" just means you're not using existing libraries. It's a cool project, but it's disappointing to come in expecting to see a rare gem of a 100% human project in 2026 but it's really something else.
[deleted]
Re: Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
#167[deleted]
Re: Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what are the tradesoffs? How is it so much smaller than V8 while also apparently including a package manager, a web server, a TypeScript compiler and a hypervisor?
> How is it so much smaller than V8 while also apparently including a package manager, a web server, a TypeScript compiler and a hypervisor? Much less complex tiers of jit, no unicode ICU, and no startup js snapshot
Does it roll its own Unicode solution without ICU, or does it forgo Unicode? Or somewhere in between?