Things I like about Zig as a Go Programmer

Things I like about Zig as a Go Programmer(medium.com)

39 points by henrik_w 2 years ago | 30 comments

zig does seem like a much more reasonable c/c++ replacement than rust.

frankjr 2 years ago | |

Agreed. It even brings all of the use after frees, memory overflows, data races etc. along so C/C++ programmers will feel right at home!

tapirl 2 years ago | | |

Yes, Zig is friendly to C/C++ programmers. This is a big advantage of Zig.

b5n 2 years ago | | |

And we'll keep building the systems that power the world so you can continue to feel right at home. You're welcome!

fleventynine 2 years ago | |

There's a lot to like about Zig, especially related to metaprogramming. Unfortunately, bulletproof memory safety is table stakes for a modern language. Without a garbage collector or borrow checker, Zig is DOA for any use case that involves untrusted data.

Maybe there's a few niches (single player games?) that don't need memory safety...

TUSF 2 years ago | | |

You can always use a garbage collecting allocator with Zig, if you're that paranoid anout it.

actuallyalys 2 years ago | |

The distinction I’ve heard is that Zig is a “better C” and Rust is a “better C++.” I haven’t done a lot of programming in any of these languages, but as an outsider it certainly seems apt.

sshine 2 years ago | | |

These can be true, while at the same time, “Rust is a better C.”

Zig and Rust have a lot of the same and a lot of different stuff to offer. I drank the Rust koolaid, but I thought for a long time Zig or Nim would be the most popular C alternative.

It’s all about the macros, it seems. Rust’s macros are not the best in the world, but they are really good.

tapirl 2 years ago | | |

That's not a good analogy. Zig shares much blood with C, but Rust doesn't share much blood with C++. Though, from the complexity view, Rust can be viewed as another C++ (or C+++).

pjmlp 2 years ago | |

While it offers Modula-2 like safety, with a syntax more appealing to C developers, in the 21st century we expect a little more from a systems language.

rowanG077 2 years ago | |

Reasonable and memory unsafe. Pick one.

pdimitar 2 years ago |

I appreciate and respect the "love it!" factor that Zig brings to the table. At the same time, IMO we shouldn't allow infatuation override the hard-learned lessons of our area.

Rust can be a drag but when we're talking compiling to machine code, I'll still prefer it to any other language that does not offer memory safety enforced by the compiler.

Furthermore, Zig is still changing, and the pace with which it is improved doesn't give me much hope. I'm open to have my mind changed so I'm observing from the sidelines. It might turn out to be the best of everything but at least to me it's too early to tell.

EdwardDiego 2 years ago | |

The article didn't mention Rust at all. Why do you?

pdimitar 2 years ago | | |

Why are you asking?

I was tempted to mention a few more but figured I don't want to make the comment too long.

karmakaze 2 years ago |

The thing that's great about Zig is that it's compiled languages deconstructed. It makes us realize the things that get conflated in other languages and lets us mix-n-match as a matter of course.

__loam 2 years ago |

I love both these languages

sshine 2 years ago | |

You know, that's not allowed in some states.