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goby-lang/goby

Goby - Yet another programming language written in Go
Source code at GitHub https://github.com/goby-lang/goby
goby-lang/goby.json
{
  "createdAt": "2017-02-08T09:23:33Z",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "description": "Goby - Yet another programming language written in Go",
  "fullName": "goby-lang/goby",
  "homepage": "",
  "language": "Go",
  "name": "goby",
  "pushedAt": "2023-02-25T04:27:37Z",
  "stargazersCount": 3511,
  "topics": [
    "api-server",
    "bytecode",
    "goby",
    "goby-codes",
    "goby-language",
    "golang",
    "interpreter",
    "object-oriented",
    "ruby"
  ],
  "updatedAt": "2025-11-15T18:51:30Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/goby-lang/goby"
}

Goby

Build Status GoDoc Go Report Card codecov Readme Score Snap Status Open Source Helpers Reviewed by Hound

Goby is an object-oriented interpreter language deeply inspired by Ruby as well as its core implementation by 100% pure Go. Moreover, it has standard libraries to provide several features such as the Plugin system. Note that we do not intend to reproduce whole of the honorable works of Ruby syntax/implementation/libraries.

The expected use case for Goby would be backend development. With this goal, it equips (but not limited to) the following features:

  • thread/channel mechanism powered by Go’s goroutine
  • Builtin database library (currently only support PostgreSQL adapter)
  • JSON support
  • Plugin system that can load existing Go packages dynamically (Only for Linux and MacOS right now)
  • Accessing Go objects from Goby directly

Note: Goby had formerly been known as “Rooby”, which was renamed in May 2017.

Table of contents

Section titled “Table of contents”

Demo screen and sample Goby app

Section titled “Demo screen and sample Goby app”

Click to see the demo below (powered by asciinema and GIPHY).

New! Check-out our sample app built with Goby. Source code is also available here.

Structure

Section titled “Structure”

3D Visualization

Section titled “3D Visualization”

A 3D visualization of Goby codebase, powered by GoCity

Goby 3D Visualization

Major Features

Section titled “Major Features”
  • Plugin system
    • Allows using Go libraries (packages) dynamically
    • Allows calling Go’s methods from Goby directly (only on Linux for now)
  • Builtin multi-threaded server and DB library
  • REPL (run goby -i)

Here’s a complete list of all the features.

Installation

Section titled “Installation”

Confirmed Goby runs on Mac OS and Linux for now. Try Goby on Windows and let us know the result.

A. Via Homebrew (binary installation for Mac OS)

Section titled “A. Via Homebrew (binary installation for Mac OS)”

Note: Please check the latest release before installing Goby via Homebrew

brew tap goby-lang/goby
brew install goby

In the case, $GOBY_ROOT is automatically configured.

B. From Source

Section titled “B. From Source”

Try this if you’d like to contribute Goby! Skip 1 if you already have Golang in your environment.

  1. Prepare Golang environment
    • Install Golang >= 1.14
    • Make sure $GOPATH in your shell’s config file( like .bashrc) is correct
    • Add your $GOPATH/bin to $PATH
    • Add export GO111MODULE=on to your shell profile
  2. Run go get github.com/goby-lang/goby
  3. Set the Goby project’s exact root path $GOBY_ROOT manually, which should be:
$GOPATH/src/github.com/goby-lang/goby

C. Installation on a Linux system

Section titled “C. Installation on a Linux system”

In order to install Go, Goby and PostgreSQL on a Linux system, see the wiki page.

Verifying Goby installation

Section titled “Verifying Goby installation”
  1. Run goby -v to see the version.
  2. Run goby -i to launch igb REPL.
  3. Type require "uri" in igb.

FYI: You can just run brew test goby to check Homebrew installation.

If you have any issue installing Goby, please let us know via GitHub issues

Using Docker

Section titled “Using Docker”

Goby has official docker image as well. You can try the Plugin System using docker.

Syntax highlighting

Section titled “Syntax highlighting”

The Goby syntax is currently a subset of the Ruby one, with an exception (get_block), therefore, it’s possible to attain syntax highlighting on any platform/editor by simply switching it to Ruby for the currently opened file.

Sublime Text 3

Section titled “Sublime Text 3”

Sublime Text 3 users can use the Only Goby package, by typing the following in a terminal:

Terminal window
git clone git@github.com:saveriomiroddi/only-goby-for-sublime-text "$HOME/.config/sublime-text-3/Packages/only-goby-for-sublime-text"

this will automatically apply the Goby syntax highlighting to the .gb files.

Vim

Section titled “Vim”

Vim users can use the vim-goby-syntax-highlighting definition, by typing the following in a terminal:

Terminal window
mkdir -p "$HOME/.vim/syntax"
wget -O "$HOME/.vim/syntax/goby.vim" https://raw.githubusercontent.com/saveriomiroddi/vim-goby-syntax-highlighting/master/goby.vim
echo 'au BufNewFile,BufRead *.gb    setf goby' >> "$HOME/.vim/filetype.vim"

this will automatically apply the Goby syntax highlighting to the .gb files.

SpaceVim

Section titled “SpaceVim”

SpaceVim users can load the lang#goby layer by adding following configuration:

[[layers]]
  name = "lang#goby"

Sample codes

Section titled “Sample codes”

More sample Goby codes can be found in sample directory.

Joining to Goby

Section titled “Joining to Goby”

Join us on Slack!

See the guideline.

Maintainers

Section titled “Maintainers”
  • @st0012
  • @hachi8833
  • @saveriomiroddi

Designer

Section titled “Designer”

Supporters

Section titled “Supporters”

Sponsors

Section titled “Sponsors”

Powered by

Section titled “Powered by”

JetBrains Goland

Supporting Goby by sending your first PR! See contribution guideline

References

Section titled “References”

The followings are the essential resources to create Goby; I highly recommend you to check them first if you’d be interested in building your own languages: