{
  "id": 8574675,
  "title": "V Language Review (2023)",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/19/v-language-review-2023",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-19T22:36:30.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Lobsters",
    "slug": "lobsters",
    "url": "https://n-skvortsov-1997.github.io/reviews/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "V is a new programming language that has recently caught the attention of programmers. The language boasts an appealing syntax and makes several promises on its website. The author has spent 6 months learning V and has compiled their experience into a lengthy review. The documentation for V is extensive, with all the information contained in a single file called \"docs.md.\" One of the first things that stand out in the documentation is the list of built-in types, including i128 and u128, which are described as \"small soon\" types. The author notes that these types have been present in the documentation for at least four years, indicating the language's ongoing development. Another notable difference between V and other popular languages like C and Go is the size of the 'int' type. While C and Go have a 32-bit 'int,' V's 'int' is 32-bit in release 0.4.3 but can be 64-bit on 64-bit systems and 32-bit on 32-bit systems. The documentation is sparse and sometimes lacks crucial details. For example, the section on generics is brief and consists mainly of code examples without proper explanations. V also offers several memory management options, including garbage collection, arena memory management, manual memory management, and autofree. The last option, autofree, allows developers to use libc's malloc function for all allocations and clean up the memory themselves. However, the author notes that memory allocated inside standard library functions can cause memory leaks. This issue is prevalent throughout the standard library, particularly in string methods. The author provides examples of functions like 'is_ascii' that can lead to memory leaks when used with manual memory management. Additionally, the author highlights that arrays are never deallocated in vweb code, leading to potential memory leaks in web applications. The author concludes that manual memory management in V is not suitable for real-world applications, except for simple programs where memory leaks are not a concern. The documentation's description of autofree mode is misleading, stating that 90-100% of objects will be cleaned up automatically by the compiler. However, the author's research shows that this is not always the case, with only 0.1% of objects being freed by the compiler and the remaining 99.9% being freed by the garbage collector.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}