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Cool project. The "more pragmatic than C" design goal reminds me of game developer Johnathan Blow's Jai language [1]. It seems like Zig is still in very early s

by blt 11y ago

Cool project. The "more pragmatic than C" design goal reminds me of game developer Johnathan Blow's Jai language [1]. It seems like Zig is still in very early stage, are you planning to incorporate any Jai-like features? I especially like its SOA keyword for quickly changing data layouts [2]. I really like this corner of the language design world. People always say that C is too entrenched and none of these languages are compelling enough to make a large number of developers switch, but I disagree. Someone said that C and Lisp are two local optima in the space of programming languages... I think that Lisp probably is, but C is only near a local optimum. There is a true local optimum remaining to be found. [1] https://github.com/BSVino/JaiPrimer/blob/master/JaiPrimer.md https://github.com/BSVino/JaiPrimer/blob/master/JaiPrimer.md [2] https://github.com/BSVino/JaiPrimer/blob/master/JaiPrimer.md#data-oriented-structures https://github.com/BSVino/JaiPrimer/blob/master/JaiPrimer.md...

AndyKelley 11y ago
I wrote this elsewhere in response to a similar question: > I've been following the project, and he has some great ideas that I plan to shamelessly copy such as Struct Of Array support. Running arbitrary code at compile time is on the table, but I haven't figured everything out about it yet. Jonathan Blow is an interesting character. I have a lot of respect for him, but I don't always agree with him. I feel like his perspective is insightful but also limited in some ways. I'm sure the same is true for myself, but all that is to say, our respective languages will be (and already are) different enough to warrant being different projects. For example, one of my goals is "friendly to open source package maintainers (such as Debian)". This entails things like keeping a meticulous record of how to bootstrap the compiler without compromising security, having a reproducible build, providing ways for the maintainers to configure various things, etc. Based on what I know about Jon, he'll either be completely apathetic about package maintainers, or potentially even have a hostile attitude. > Also no spoilers for The Witness please. I'm waiting until it comes out on Linux to play :-)

by blt 11y ago

AndyKelley 11y ago

I wrote this elsewhere in response to a similar question: > I've been following the project, and he has some great ideas that I plan to shamelessly copy such as Struct Of Array support. Running arbitrary code at compile time is on the table, but I haven't figured everything out about it yet. Jonathan Blow is an interesting character. I have a lot of respect for him, but I don't always agree with him. I feel like his perspective is insightful but also limited in some ways. I'm sure the same is true for myself, but all that is to say, our respective languages will be (and already are) different enough to warrant being different projects. For example, one of my goals is "friendly to open source package maintainers (such as Debian)". This entails things like keeping a meticulous record of how to bootstrap the compiler without compromising security, having a reproducible build, providing ways for the maintainers to configure various things, etc. Based on what I know about Jon, he'll either be completely apathetic about package maintainers, or potentially even have a hostile attitude. > Also no spoilers for The Witness please. I'm waiting until it comes out on Linux to play :-)