Overview
An optimized fork of Joker (Clojure-like Lisp interpreter) for inclusion in gi, a self-hosted coding agent. Five execution tiers — native integer codegen, WASM native via wazero JIT, typed IR with zero-boxing, boxed IR for collections, and tree-walker for full Clojure semantics — selected automatically per expression. Mandelbrot runs ~4200× faster than upstream; fib(35) in 0.5s via native codegen.
How it works
The compiler analyses each expression and emits to the fastest viable tier: pure-integer recursive functions compile to native Go closures (53× faster, zero boxing), pure numeric loops compile to WASM bytecode executed by wazero's JIT (~0.2ms), primitive/string/cursor loops use a typed IR stack with zero boxing (~2–8ms), collection-heavy code uses a boxed IR interpreter (~10–40ms), and everything else falls through to the tree-walker for full macro/special-form/I/O support.
Features
Native integer codegen
Pure-integer recursive defn bodies compile to fixed-arity native Go closures. fib(35) in 0.5s (53× faster).
WASM/wazero JIT
Pure integer/float loops compile to native code via wazero. ~0.2ms for Mandelbrot.
Typed IR (zero-boxing)
Primitive, string, and cursor loops on an irValue stack — no interface{} boxing overhead.
Transient vectors and maps
O(1) append/assoc for builder patterns — auto-promoted from persistent collections.
Web runtime
Ring-style HTTP server with WebSocket and SSE/streaming extensions. Bottle-style router with path params, middleware, and CORS.
Clojure parity surface
Protocols, records, hierarchies, tagged literals, sorted collections, atom watchers, chunked seqs, unchecked arithmetic.
Additional namespaces
joker.imaging (image processing), joker.svg (SVG + raster), joker.pdf (PDF), joker.random, joker.log, joker.http, joker.http.router.
Runtime introspection
disassemble, analyze, wasm-diagnostic, escape-analysis, profile, benchmark, mem-stats, gc — all from Joker scripts.
Web notebooks
Mathematica-style EDN notebooks with Observable-style dependency metadata. Local browser UI (CodeMirror + ECharts + Mermaid, no CDN), headless execution, Markdown export, and self-contained inline outputs for agent/debug reports.
Architecture
Posts
2026-05-11
Notes for May 3-10