Objectives

What do we want to do today?

introduce the core V syntax

explore the V type system and semantics

get a sense of how to use V well

Objectives

Notes before we begin:

Code: https://github.com/tedneward/Demo-V

Slides: http://www.newardassociates.com/presentations/BusyDevsGuide/V.html

V Overview

Their own words

"V is a statically typed compiled programming language designed for building maintainable software.

"It's similar to Go and its design has also been influenced by Oberon, Rust, Swift, Kotlin, and Python.

"V is a very simple language. Going through this documentation will take you about a weekend, and by the end of it you will have pretty much learned the entire language.

"The language promotes writing simple and clear code with minimal abstraction.

"Despite being simple, V gives the developer a lot of power. Anything you can do in other languages, you can do in V."

V Overview

Feature set

Transpiles to C

including itself!

can also do C to V translation

Flexible memory management

full GC, "autofree", none, or arena (pre)allocation

C interoperability; includes Python and Ruby interop examples

Fast compilation; native, JavaScript, and WebAssembly backends

Single binary output (no dependencies)

Getting Started

Online Playground

https://play.vlang.io/

Good for taking just a quick peek

But as with all online playgrounds, limits the full exploration experience

Getting Started

Installation

macOS, Linux: brew install vlang

Windows:

Docker: docker run -it --name v-container thevlang/vlang /bin/bash (Debian Buster)

Getting Started

Installation

Build from source: git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v; cd v; make

on Windows, use make.bat

Build docker image from source

same as above

docker build -t vlang .

docker run --rm -it vlang:latest

V uses tcc (Tiny C Compiler) as a bootstrap for development builds

Prod builds are better done using clang/gcc/msvc

Getting Started

Editor plugins

VSCode

Vim

JetBrains

Emacs

Sublime Text, Atom, zed

... plus a generic language server for any you want to add

Getting Started

Installation

Verify: v --version

as of Nov 2025, returns "0.4.12"

REPL: v or v repl

help to see full (short) list of commands

exit, Ctrl-C, or Ctrl-D to exit

Getting Started

REPL: What time is it now, in UTC?

>>> import net.http
>>> data := http.get('https://vlang.io/utc_now')!
>>> data.body
1565977541

Getting Started

Hello, world

Create a new V project in a new directory: v new

Scaffolds out a few files

.editorconfig

.gitattributes

.gitignore

.git (Directory)

main.v

v.mod

Getting Started

Code

module main

fn main() {
	println('Hello World!')
}

Run

$ v run main.v
Hello World!
$

V Resources

Online

Website: https://vlang.io/

Documentation: https://docs.vlang.io/introduction.html

Tutorials:

Nothing written, just examples in GitHub repo

https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/tutorials

Stdlib documentation: https://modules.vlang.io/

Blog: https://vlang.veery.blog/blog

it's... not great, very clearly an alpha/experiment

V Resources

Books

"Getting Started with V Programming"

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1839213434

"Randomness Revisited using the V Programming Language"

https://novapublishers.com/shop/randomness-revisited-using-the-v-programming-language

Summary

So... now what?

Credentials

Who is this guy?

Architect, Engineering Manager/Leader, "force multiplier"

http://www.newardassociates.com

http://blogs.newardassociates.com

Sr Distinguished Engineer, Capital One

Educative (http://educative.io) Author

Performance Management for Engineering Managers

Books

Developer Relations Activity Patterns (w/Woodruff, et al; APress, forthcoming)

Professional F# 2.0 (w/Erickson, et al; Wrox, 2010)

Effective Enterprise Java (Addison-Wesley, 2004)

SSCLI Essentials (w/Stutz, et al; OReilly, 2003)

Server-Based Java Programming (Manning, 2000)