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The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

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Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#101

Post by eviks »

saghm wrote: post #55
joshuakelleyds wrote: post #40

I would add quick note to this as title is misleading * It was partially open-sourced before this. There were a lot of cool things they open sourced before like MAX for large scale LLM serving which was outperforming VLLM, Dynamo, etc on a lot of models. (super valuable GPU kernels). This is why Qualcomm acquire them imo. * Chris (also created swift) talked in the past the reason for not fully open-sourcing was more…

> Chris (also created swift) talked in the past the reason for not fully open-sourcing was more because he wanted to get all the core design decisions right. He said this was a big thing Swift got wrong as it scaled too quickly being fully ope source at I don't understand what open source has to do with this. People being able to see your source code doesn't somehow prevent you from changing it however you want. Yes,…

> but you can also just ignore it.

Apparently, this isn't as easy for some people who are deeply involved

Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#103

Post by ModernMech »

mathisfun123 wrote: post #49
rvz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I wasn't even sure what problem does it solves. Looks like its completely missing from the regular discussion / news outlets. Every 1-2 years some barely visible post/article reminds me it even exists... At this point "developers" these days sound a lot more like consumers than those who actually do research on a tool that solves a problem. Ocaml is barely mentioned in the news and rarely HNers here use that la…

How noob do you have to be to really feel this way lol Edit: a language is by definition an ecosystem. Learning/using a language that no one else uses is completely pointless.

The interesting opportunity in 2026 for languages is that an LLM doesn't complain if there's an ecosystem or whether any other LLMs or people are using a language, they'll just write the code in whatever language you tell it to. Already authors are writing languages with features aimed at making it more more attractive for AI to write than people. Also great for working with research languages. I just used AI to write a Halide program and I wouldn't have bothered to do so before, for the reasons you state.

Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#104

Post by mirekrusin »

saghm wrote: post #70
mirekrusin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chris literally was saying it from the very beginning (you can watch early interviews, obviously he was being asked about it), everything that happens with progressive opening is what he said he'll do and he gave rationale for it which is summarized by what parent comment says.

That doesn't seem to address what the parent comment says; they're arguing that the rationale for the progressive opening doesn't make sense, not that it didn't or wouldn't happen. If I say "I'm going to work on feature XYZ at work today because the sky is yellow and grass is purple", it would not make sense to defend my claim tomorrow by pointing out that I did work on feature XYZ.

[dead]

Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#105

Post by ElectronCharge »

ubercore wrote: post #48
aeonflux wrote: post #3

Does this project have any meaningful traction? Seemed like a cool idea, but I wasn't even sure what problem does it solves. Looks like its completely missing from the regular discussion / news outlets. Every 1-2 years some barely visible post/article reminds me it even exists...

The "problem" it might solve for me, personally, is having a systems-level language that matches my personal style a bit better than Rust or other more modern systems level languages. I know they're putting a lot of weight on GPU programming, which is fine and probably solves problems, but this is the part that would motivate me personally.

I'm in the same category, but GPU support is definitely interesting too. The idea of offloading intensive processing to the GPU has its merits.

Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#106

Post by conmod278 »

eviks wrote: post #101
saghm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chris (also created swift) talked in the past the reason for not fully open-sourcing was more because he wanted to get all the core design decisions right. He said this was a big thing Swift got wrong as it scaled too quickly being fully ope source at I don't understand what open source has to do with this. People being able to see your source code doesn't somehow prevent you from changing it however you want. Yes,…

> but you can also just ignore it. Apparently, this isn't as easy for some people who are deeply involved

E.g. GRRM avoids reading fan theories so that he doesn't change his writings to actively thwart them.

Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#107

Post by [deleted] »

stasomatic wrote: post #81
bwfan123 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> expert C++ programmers as what they imagine a good C++ will look like Mojo looks nice but with coding agents the landscape has shifted at least in my view. There is no need for DSLs and abstractions that reduce human cognitive load. So, I still struggle with the usecase for Mojo. If you want close to metal performance, code in something that touches metal (c,c++), and doesnt abstract you away from it or require uns…

that you can visualize precisely what the hw is doing with no abstractions to hide it. How can one hold the nuances of different architectures in their head, unless you stick to something like a console that doesn't evolve much for a half a decade or more? Don't you want at least some abstraction?

[deleted]

Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#108

Post by saghm »

jasode wrote: post #99
saghm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chris (also created swift) talked in the past the reason for not fully open-sourcing was more because he wanted to get all the core design decisions right. He said this was a big thing Swift got wrong as it scaled too quickly being fully ope source at I don't understand what open source has to do with this. People being able to see your source code doesn't somehow prevent you from changing it however you want. Yes,…

>I don't understand what open source has to do with this. People being able to see your source code doesn't somehow prevent you from changing it however you want. Yes, they can voice their opinion on it, but you can also just ignore it. Deep link to Chris Lattner interview where he says he learned lessons from Swift being rapidly released as open source meant that early design decisions that were suboptimal caused qu…

That doesn't clarify anything at all to me at least. If the goal was to avoid people depending on it before it was ready, why had I been hearing about it for so long before this? Something being marketed is not consistent with a concern to avoid having people rely on it and voice their opinions.

Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#109

Post by saghm »

LoganDark wrote: post #87
saghm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Are you claiming that if Mojo was open source earlier, everyone would still be using the old versions for a long time? I don't buy the claim that a pre-1.0 language only a few years old without widespread production use is comparable to one of the most widely used languages on the planet that had been around for close to two decades at the time of what you're descri…

> Are you claiming that if Mojo was open source earlier, everyone would still be using the old versions for a long time? No, just saying it's happened before and it doesn't seem unreasonable to be wary of it.

Okay, but by that logic, if I can point to one instance of something suboptimal happening due to software being closed source, then it's reasonable to be wary of that too. I don't see how this is a plausible justification for keeping something closed source in the absence of taking into account the likelihood of something similar happening here, and for the reasons I laid out previously, I think it's borderline absurd to claim that was a real concern in the timeline that Mojo was closed.

Re: The Mojo language (by Modular, now Qualcomm) is now open-source

#110

Post by saghm »

geodel wrote: post #89
saghm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Are you claiming that if Mojo was open source earlier, everyone would still be using the old versions for a long time? I don't buy the claim that a pre-1.0 language only a few years old without widespread production use is comparable to one of the most widely used languages on the planet that had been around for close to two decades at the time of what you're descri…

It prevents endless discussions on github, hurt egos when my precious PR is rejected by committers, and commentary on not being true open source because they are not welcoming source contribution, feature request, when they are trying stabilize compiler and so on. Now none of these are guaranteed to happen when it is open source. But at least it is guaranteed to not happen when its not open source.

I don't understand that argument at all, unless you think that the only value of open source is in the potential for people to say nice things about your project. If you think there's inherent value in something being open source, you don't even need to have a Github repo (a tarball on your website with the source code is open source), and nothing anyone says would take away from that inherent value.

I'm firmly of the opinion that there's inherent value in being open source. I would honestly expect most developers to recognize that nowadays, but maybe I'm wrong. My concern is that someone who doesn't think this is the case is probably more likely to also not want to come right out and say it, because that would potentially prevent them from getting the value they're truly looking for from the stuff they do open source. The justifications that are being given here is that they seem to be heavily predicated on the value of open source being primarily from marketing rather than the very nature of code being open having value on its own, and I would be both surprised and disappointed if that's the opinion of the people in charge of Mojo. I'm sincerely hoping that there's something else going on here though, so I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt and see if I'm missing something.

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