I made a custom programming language using a bit of Gen-Z slang and a LOT of bare-metal C++.
The highlight feature is the silly ass syntax where you can just use words like lowkey and yap to bullshit your way through your logic. It doesn’t have a heavy virtual machine or bytecode compiler, it instead walks the AST directly in memory, so it hits sub-millisecond execution speeds that actually beat Python.
The challenging part was the C++ standard library distribution, I would’ve just shipped the raw binary if I could, and I did try, but it didn’t go anywhere because of missing Windows DLLs so I had to make compromises and statically link everything in order for it to run on other machines at all. I also had some difficulties with the setup.bat installer, but the issue was the legacy Windows 1024-character limit literally chopping off the system PATH, but this bug ONLY occurred when automating the environment setup, not when actually compiling or running the engine.
I’m proud of how polished everything is. I have a GitHub release that packs a standalone .exe with zero dependencies so anyone can download and run it instantly. I also have a folder of classic algorithm examples to prove it’s Turing complete that no one will probably look at because they just want to see the boss fight demo. The engine execution is also very polished, it uses memory-mapped string buffering to atomic-flush the console to make the performance benchmark look insanely fast. The whole project is the closest thing I have to a “real” product.