README.md

June 26, 2026 · View on GitHub

Raven Logo

A modern programming language built with Rust.
Fast, safe, expressive, and easy to read.

Documentation · Website · Releases · Issues

Why Raven

Compiled to native machine code through Cranelift, into a single static binary.
Static typing with generics, traits, and sum types checked by an exhaustive match.
A tracing garbage collector and Result/Option instead of null.
Goroutines and channels that run in parallel across CPU cores (an M:N scheduler over a multi-threaded collector), with mutexes, wait groups, and select, and a C FFI for native libraries.
A package manager (rvpm), one canonical formatter, and a VS Code extension.

Quick Example

struct User {
    name: String,
    age: Int,
}

fun greet(user: User) -> String {
    return "Hello ${user.name}, you are ${user.age}"
}

fun main() {
    let u = User { name: "Raven", age: 2 }
    print(greet(u))
}

Install

Download the installer or archive for your platform from the releases page:

Linux: .deb, .rpm, or .tar.gz
Windows: .msi or .zip

This installs the raven compiler and the rvpm package manager and adds them to your PATH. Compiling a program also needs a C linker on your machine (the MSVC build tools on Windows, cc/clang on Linux).

Quick Start

# Compile a source file to a native binary
raven build hello.rv -o hello
./hello

Project workflow with rvpm:

rvpm new my_app
cd my_app
rvpm run          # builds and runs src/main.rv
rvpm fmt          # format the .rv sources

Build from source

For contributors, or to track the latest commit:

git clone https://github.com/martian56/raven.git
cd raven
cargo build --release

The raven and rvpm binaries land in target/release/.

Learn More

Full docs: https://martian56.github.io/raven/
Project website: https://raven.ufazien.com/
Getting started: https://martian56.github.io/raven/v2/guide/getting-started/
Language reference: https://martian56.github.io/raven/v2/guide/language-reference/
Standard library: https://martian56.github.io/raven/v2/guide/standard-library/

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