Monkey C – Small familiar language for apps on Garmin watches

Re:Monkey C – Small familiar language for apps on Garmin wat... by JSR_FDED on Friday March 20, 2026 @10:13PM (#47463372)

Why not just use Lua? I get that it’s fun to make your own language, but if Garmin is trying to create a developer ecosystem then having their own C/Java/Lua-like language seems an unnecessary impediment.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Monkey C – Small familiar language for apps on Garmin wat... by thedingwing on Saturday March 21, 2026 @12:04AM (#47463869)

I maintain a few applications for Garmin's ecosystem in Monkey C and I share the same sentiment. While Lua's syntax might "feel weird" to some, it has standard tooling (language server, formatter, etc.) that could be leveraged. Instead, Garmin is on their own with a hand-rolled VSCode plugin and their own type checker implemented in Java.

I really don't understand why they were compelled to make their own language.

[ Parent | on HN ]