The trio the author decided on 2026-09-20 is now all built: def is CL's
defparameter — its initialiser runs on every daemon re-run, unguarded, so
an edited initialiser repaints the same storage on C-c C-c plus re-run —
defonce (Clojure's name for CL's defvar, per the author) initialises once
behind the .init~once. flag, and defconst stays the image.
One parse arm reads both forms; the difference is Ast.reinit, carried to
Tast.global's grerun. Emit.startup_plan gives a def no guard flag, and
Check.check_global lifts every def initialiser — zero and literal
included — into global/<n>, so the host's startup reaches it through the
function cell and a re-evaluated def swaps it (Session's def_inits;
Emit.redefinition declares the cell for a non-sibling target). The old
defvar spelling is refused with the rename and both compiling spellings,
and every program, test, doc and editor list is swept — except sand.flan,
the author's live WIP, whose seven defvar lines are flagged in FIX.org
and keep its three dependent tests red on this branch.
The spike proved the shape; this makes it the feature. A generic body is
still checked abstractly once, but now it may be told what to assume:
{:where (ordered? $t)} at the head of the body, Clojure's {:pre [...]}
spelling, with five predicates - ordered?, equal?, hashable?, numeric?
and copyable?.
The syntax catch settled structurally: {K V} is still a legal return
type, and a constraint map is told from one by its leading keyword. A
keyword is not a type anywhere in the language, so the slot after the
return type is unambiguous and {K V} did not have to go.
A type variable is move-only by default, with copyable? the opt-out.
Move is the stricter rule, so assuming it can only refuse a valid
program, never admit a bad one. That is Rust's T: Copy and not Odin's
anything - Odin has no move semantics at all.
The runaway refusal no longer names a depth. It names the chain: a
generic already on the instantiation stack, asked for again at a type
built around the one it had before, is growing and will not stop.
