Odin (programming language)

Odin
Paradigm	Imperative, data-oriented, procedural
Designed by	Bill Hall
Developer	The Odin Community
First appeared	July 2016 (2016-07)
Stable release	dev-2026-02 / February 4, 2026 (2026-02-04)
Typing discipline	Static, strong, inferred
OS	Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD
License	zlib License
Filename extensions	.odin
Website	odin-lang.org
Major implementations
Odin Compiler (LLVM-based)
Influenced by
Pascal, C, Go, Oberon-2, Newsqueak, GLSL

Odin is a general-purpose, statically typed, compiled systems programming language designed by Bill Hall. It was created to serve as an alternative to C using data-oriented programming and a modern type system.

The language avoids object-oriented concepts such as classes and inheritance. Instead it offers features such as structs, data composition, and a custom context system. It is a general purpose language with systems-level performance, so it can be used in game development and computer graphics. It is used as the primary language for the software developed by JangaFX.

History

Development of Odin began in July, 2016, by Bill Hall (often referred to online as "Ginger Bill"). Hall began the project due to frustration with C++ and a desire for a language that offered the low-level capabilities of C with modern quality-of-life improvements, strict type safety, and better memory control.

The language has been developed as an open-source project, hosted on GitHub, with contributions from the community. It is currently in active development, with frequent releases aimed at stabilising a specification before reaching version 1.0.

Design and philosophy

Odin is designed with a focus on simplicity, high performance, and modern systems programming needs. While it shares the goal of being a system-level language like C, it features distinct syntax and behavior compared to C, adopting a Pascal-style declaration syntax and strict type separation. To support high-performance graphics and game development, the language includes a rich built-in set of types for mathematics, including vectors, matrices, and quaternions, as well as native support for endian-specific types.

Data-oriented programming

A core pillar of Odin's philosophy is data-oriented programming, also known as data-oriented design (DOD). The language provides native features to manipulate memory layouts efficiently, catering to modern CPU cache architectures. This includes built-in support for struct of arrays (SoA) data structures. While many languages require manual implementation of SoA layouts, Odin provides specific syntax, such as `#soa` slices and arrays, to automatically transform data structures. This allows developers to switch between Array of Structures (AoS) and SoA without significant refactoring of the codebase.

Memory management

Odin relies on manual memory management rather than garbage collection. To manage resources safely, the language utilizes a `defer` statement to ensure cleanup code runs at the end of a scope.

Implicit context

A distinctive feature of Odin is the "implicit context system." According to language creator Bill Hall, "in each scope, there is an implicit value named `context`" which "is local to each scope and is implicitly passed by pointer to any procedure call in that scope." Hall states that "the main purpose of the implicit context system is for the ability to intercept third-party code and libraries and modify their functionality," such as "modifying how a library allocates something or logs something." The language documentation notes that this allows the system to define "the allocator, the logger, and the error handler" for a specific scope without explicitly passing them as parameters.

Type system and features

The language uses a strict, statically typed system. It supports "ad hoc parametric polymorphism" (generics), allowing for reusable code structures without the complexity of traditional C++ templates or object-oriented inheritance.

Odin supports multiple return values from procedures. This feature facilitates the language's primary method of error handling: rather than using exceptions, Odin relies on error handling through multiple returns, where a procedure returns a value alongside an error code or a boolean success flag. The type system also enforces "distinct types," meaning a named type defined from an existing type (e.g., `distinct int`) cannot be used interchangeably with the original type without an explicit cast, preventing logic errors.

Syntax

Odin's syntax uses curly braces for scoping but adopts a procedural declaration style.

Hello World

package main

import "core:fmt"

main :: proc() {
    fmt.println("Hello, World!")
}

Pointers

Odin uses `^` for pointer types and a postfix `^` for dereferencing:

p: ^int
p^ = 10

Ecosystem and usage

Odin includes a "core" library for standard functionality (IO, math, networking) and a "vendor" library. The vendor library integrates popular third-party C libraries, such as OpenGL, Vulkan, SDL, and Raylib, directly into the distribution to facilitate immediate development for graphics and games.

Notable software

The most prominent commercial usage of Odin is by the software company JangaFX, which uses Odin for its real-time simulation tools used in film and game production.

External links

• Official website
• The Odin Book by Karl Zylinski
• Odin Repository on GitHub