On February 16, 2024, the first version release of the Hare programming language (0.24.0) from the team led by Drew DeWalt (the creator of the SourceHut platform and the Aerc mail client) took place, as well as a new release policy.

The developers of the project explained that work on Hare is at an active stage, and there may be some critical changes between releases. They have so many ideas and developments that the project code changes quickly. Therefore, the project team decided to issue quarterly Hare releases with version numbers of the type 0.YY.Q, where YY is the two-digit release year and Q is the (zero-indexed) quarter in which it was released. A changelog (including a brief description of critical changes and required actions for affected users) will be prepared for each release as part of the development of the hare-announce portal.

“In the future, we will make drastic changes, some of which may even be dramatic (serious/significant). We plan to freeze the Hare 1.0 language version, so we need to be able to fix design bugs at this stage of the Hare lifecycle. However, we recognize that Hare is relatively complex and useful today, and we want to find a balance that helps people use it today, while still having the tools to deal with these changes as they arise,” the project developers explained.

Hare is a system programming language, sharpened for writing compilers and network software. The language is based on the idea of ​​manual memory management, static typing, and fast execution speed. Executable files are generated on the backend of the qbe compiler. The Hare standard library includes networking modules, cryptographic implementations, parsers, and lexical tools for POSIX. There are bindings to OpenGL and SDL2, as well as libui libraries for building cross-platform GUIs.

The project developers have prepared documentation and a manual for using Hare.

Helios microkernel, Himitsu password manager, box encryption tool, btqd torrent daemon, scheduled (cron alternative) and raytracing system are already written on Hare.

It is noted that Hare is very similar to C, and almost all C programs can be rewritten in Hare. However, Hare looks simpler and more convenient. The developers note that Hare trusts the programmer and executes the written code without hidden manipulations.

The Hare language distribution and libraries fit entirely on a three-inch floppy disk.