Why Futuruna

I have pondered for a long time how to make a programming language that would be able to encode the rule of law. Others have pondered the same, but by my estimation, whatever has been made seems unmade for humans. I think that this time it might be different.

Futuruna is not a programming language that ONLY encodes law; it is just a programming language where this can be done naturally, in combination with ordinary programming.

If you are a programming language nerd, which I am not, then you might have tried Prolog, which I have - and it's not easy. It's innovative in what it achieves, it really is. You can describe rules, not instructions, and the language itself becomes a search engine for answers. This seems analogous to law. But it was never made for law in that way, and God help you if you try - it's more of a language for database wizards. Again, the language IS innovative, and Futuruna would not exist without it, but it does not fit the bill.

Then we have a niche newcomer, one I am heavily inspired by: Catala Law, just called Catala by its makers. Catala really DOES encode laws as code. The problem with this language is that it ONLY encodes law. Normal programming is outside of its domain and, in my opinion, although I do not speak ill of the language's great ambition, it is really difficult to use outside of strict law programming. And it's difficult to integrate such a niche language with other ambitions.

Catala follows the natural way of writing laws, where you first describe the default case of something, then patch on conditions and exceptions afterwards that modify it. Normal programming is the other way around: you guard all the special conditions up front until you get to the last line of the program, which is the first line of the law. You should be able to choose your point of entry here, and Futuruna allows that, with ergonomics I consider better than Catala.

You might wonder now: why would anyone make a programming language today, when LLMs can encode anything you want? The problem is that LLMs can only ever encode things with the capabilities of the programming language they are working with. If you try to make an LLM encode law without a language that can encode law, the LLM will do its best to shoot itself in the foot, just so you can keep spending tokens. You will be trying to make a bike somehow speed-pedal to the Moon, although it cannot fly.

To make an LLM do more with code, you have to make the code able to do more. So I did. Welcome to Futuruna. I hope you enjoy the language and start experimenting yourself.

The Quick Fly-In

Futuruna uses an innovative new approach where you (mostly) put a rune in FRONT of the line you are about to write, which allows you to mix classical programming with rule-based programming. I know, who would have thunk it, right? Is it just a bad idea, and that's why no one has done it?

Well, my objection is that there is a simple reason why it is actually a good idea. A front rune gives each kind of statement its own space, so its capabilities do not have to compete with those in the language's other spaces. This gives the author more options for writing a good program while giving the reader less uncertainty about what they are reading. This can be distilled into a fancy name: partitioned syntax, a solid tradeoff where putting one character in front makes it easier to mix programming domains in the same language. The Philosophy of Futuruna explores the argument in more depth.

The seven runes and what they mean in Futuruna are explored in more depth here. All I will say is that I also believe Futuruna would work exceptionally well with AI because of this front-rune system. One could speculate that it would orient the latent space and attention heads of LLMs more correctly toward the instruction ahead. Time will tell.

The last thing to say about Futuruna is that it is not made completely from scratch. It transpiles to Rust, an extremely fast and safe systems-level programming language. It removes several obstacles that normal Rust beginners struggle with (ownership rules) without sacrificing safety, keeping Futuruna readable and compatible with a wide variety of libraries, and of course making Futuruna FAST.

Okay, maybe I am a programming language nerd, or have somewhat become one. I invite you to try out Futuruna: start encoding laws, contracts, and documents, and audit them. Or start making programs and rules in a cool and readable fashion. Let your imagination run wild and let Futuruna run with it.