November 6, 2025
Code or Copium?
Erlang Meets Idris: Cure Programming Language
Code that proves itself hits Erlang; commenters split: 'revolution' or AI-made hype
TLDR: Cure promises math-verified code and checked state machines on Erlang’s BEAM, and there’s a real repo to try. The crowd is split: some accuse AI-made hype, others debate Gleam vs Cure while early adopters say it’s young but exciting for safer, more reliable systems.
Meet Cure, the new programming language promising math-checked code on Erlang’s famously reliable VM (the engine behind many chat apps). It claims “Your types are theorems”—meaning the computer proves your code is correct before it runs. No if/else; it forces you to handle every case. It even lets you draw state machines (think traffic lights) and checks they won’t deadlock. Add speed boosts, editor support, and 12 starter modules, and the pitch sounds like a superhero origin story.
But the comments turned into a cage match. josefrichter kicked off the comparison to Gleam (the friendly, typed Erlang language), stirring a “who’s the future of typed BEAM?” showdown. GCUMstlyHarmls zoomed in on the logo, spawning memes about what the letters even mean. Then h4kor dropped the bomb: “This is 100% LLM generated… no repo. Why care?” Accusations of vaporware flew—until bjoli walked in like a referee and posted the GitHub repo. Suddenly, the mood shifted from “is this real?” to “it’s real, but is it ready?” weatherlight summed it up: young project, big goals, love the Erlang foundation. The vibe: split between skeptics calling hype and optimists eyeing safer, proof-backed systems on the BEAM.
Key Points
- •Cure is a dependently typed, strongly typed language that compiles to the BEAM VM for Erlang/Elixir interoperability.
- •It integrates Z3 and CVC5 SMT solvers to prove type-level constraints and state machine properties at compile time.
- •The language includes native FSM syntax; the compiler verifies reachability, deadlock freedom, and invariant preservation.
- •Control flow uses exhaustive pattern matching with guards instead of if-then-else, with compiler-verified completeness.
- •Tooling includes a complete LSP implementation, full OTP compatibility, and a 12-module standard library; performance optimizations claim 25–60% speedups.