February 12, 2026
Parens, pain, and praise
I Wrote a Scheme in 2025
Rust dev ships a Lisp, internet argues about parentheses
TLDR: Matthew Plant released scheme-rs 0.1.0, a Rust-built version of the Lisp language Scheme, passing 2,258 tests and now working both async and sync. Comments split between “Lisp is hard and asks a lot” and “this tackles real problems,” with jokes about parentheses and math-nerd wizardry.
Matthew Plant just shipped scheme-rs 0.1.0, a fresh take on the old-school Lisp language Scheme, built in Rust. It passed 2,258 tests and now runs in both async (do tasks in the background) and sync (straightforward) modes. The crowd immediately split into two camps: the Year of Lisp celebrators posting parentheses memes, and the eye-rollers claiming nobody wants to become a “language designer” to write a to-do app. One fan cheered the throwback vibe; another joked Rust and Scheme is “peanut butter and parentheses.” Meanwhile, practical folks applauded the move away from only-async, calling it “how real apps get built.”
The spiciest thread: whether Lisps demand too much from everyday developers. One commenter said most people bounce off the look of the language, while others argued that power is the point. Another nerdy corner celebrated the tough stuff Scheme nails—tail recursion (looping without blowing the stack), continuations (pause and resume), and hygienic macros (plugins that don’t break). Plant’s plan to build a new, math-heavy typed language on top set off “wizard alert” jokes, plus hopeful “make docs, not dissertations” nudges. Performance and garbage collector gripes showed up too, but the vibe was clear: old ideas, new energy, maximum drama online.
Key Points
- •scheme-rs, a Scheme implementation in Rust, released its first version v0.1.0.
- •The project passed 2,258 tests from the R6RS test suite, informing the decision to release.
- •scheme-rs now supports both asynchronous and synchronous execution contexts.
- •Planned improvements include better garbage collection, performance, more procedures/syntax (e.g., pattern matching), documentation, and debugging.
- •The author plans to build a new language on top of scheme-rs, potentially based on the calculus of constructions.