Crystal in 2026: a 7 MB binary, zero dependencies, and five traps

Crystal, a compiled language with a garbage collector, was used to develop a satellite ground station daemon. The project, kozai, was efficient and had a small binary size. However, the language had some sharp edges, including a rescue clause that doesn't filter by type, and macros cannot be expanded inside rescue clauses. These issues cost the developer time and are worth being aware of for newcomers. To mitigate these issues, use Ameba to catch type errors and be cautious when using rescue clauses.