NoRedInk Blog Funding the Roc Programming Language

At NoRedInk, we're no strangers to cutting-edge technology or to funding open-source software. When React was released in the summer of 2013, we were early adopters. Shortly after that, we got into Elm-really into it-and we began not only sponsoring Elm conferences, but also funding Elm's development for several years by directly paying its creator, Evan Czaplicki, to develop the language full-time.I'm beyond thrilled to announce that NoRedInk is now making a similar investment in the Roc programming language. Beginning in April, my job at NoRedInk will become developing Roc full-time!I created Roc in 2018 because I wanted an Elm-like language for use cases that are out of scope for Elm. Roc compiles to machine code instead of to JavaScript, and at NoRedInk we're interested in using it on the server to go with our Elm frontend-as well as for some command-line tooling. Although Roc isn't ready for production use yet, funding its development like this will certainly get it to that point sooner.It's impossible to overstate how excited I am about this opportunity. When I laid out a vision for Roc in a 2020 online meetup, I assumed I'd be developing it outside of work with a couple of other volunteers for the foreseeable future. I was stunned by the reaction to the video; many people started getting involved in developing the compiler-most of whom had never worked on a compiler before!-and one brave soul even did Advent of Code in Roc that year.Today Roc has 12,660 commits. The top 5 committers all have either hundreds or thousands of commits, and even though I had a considerable head start, I no longer have the most commits in the repo - the excellent Folkert de Vries does. I'm massively grateful to every contributor for making this project exist, and although commits are easy to count, Roc's design and community would not be what they are without so many wonderful contributions outside the code base-in video chats, on GitHub issues, and of course on Roc chat. Thank you, all of you, for making Roc the language it is today.The language still has a ways to go before it's ready for production use, but this investment from NoRedInk is both a game-changer for the project's development as well as a strong vote of confidence in Roc's future. Most companies benefit from the open-source ecosystem and give little to nothing back; I feel great about working for a company that builds a product that helps English teachers while making serious investments in open-source software.By the way, we're hiring!If you're interested in learning more about Roc, trying it out, or getting involved in its development, roc-lang.org has all the details. I'm so excited for the future, and can't wait for this language to reach its full potential!Richard Feldman@rtfeldman