Gleam doesn't compile to Erlang source anymore
Gleam, a type-safe and scalable language for the Erlang virtual machine and JavaScript runtimes, recently released version 1.19.0, introducing significant changes to its Erlang code generator. Previously, Gleam generated Erlang source code, but now it produces Erlang abstract forms, an intermediate representation used by the Erlang compiler.
This change has brought several benefits, including improved compiler performance and accurate line numbers for crash reports and stacktraces. While the new Erlang code generator is more modern and conforms to current standards, bypassing the Erlang compiler altogether to generate BEAM bytecode may not be feasible due to the constantly evolving nature of the bytecode, requiring constant updates to keep up with VM changes and the significant effort needed to reproduce existing optimizations.
Despite these challenges, Gleam continues to be a reliable foundation for software development, with version 1.19.0 also bringing improvements to its JavaScript compilation.
Written by urgent.news from Lobsters's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
