9 ms·

Zig's new release has a ton of improvements: new targets (e.g. LLVM 8, WASM, support tiers), C pointers, Vector type, better docs, and my personal favorite: Zig

by jph 8y ago

Zig's new release has a ton of improvements: new targets (e.g. LLVM 8, WASM, support tiers), C pointers, Vector type, better docs, and my personal favorite: Zig now makes things as static as possible by default. I love seeing all the progress with Zig, V, Muon, and Rust. All these languages are potentially-better systems languages than C/C++, with better safety, better definitions, and better semantics. Zig has an explicit goal to be better than C and to replace it.

MuffinFlavored 8y ago
Isn't V fake? https://github.com/vlang/v https://github.com/vlang/v
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I wouldn't call it "fake", but yes, it has not been publicly released.
  - Cyph0n 8y ago
    I’m honestly way more interested in Jai.
    - xena 8y ago
      Can you link to Jai?
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        https://inductive.no/jai/ https://inductive.no/jai/
      - Cyph0n 8y ago
        Here is a link to a primer written by the community: https://github.com/BSVino/JaiPrimer/blob/master/JaiPrimer.md https://github.com/BSVino/JaiPrimer/blob/master/JaiPrimer.md Right now, the only way to actually see the language in action is to tune in to Jonathan's livestreams on Twitch. He is writing his next game entirely in Jai. He also streams compiler development every now and then (last night was a compiler stream).
- verdex_phone 8y ago
  That's not particularly charitable. The accidental AMA that happened on HN a few weeks back gave me the impression that V lang isn't as polished as a concept as some of the other offerings out there. BUT the author seemed tp have something brewing. And regardless we'll have some more evidence in the coming months. Regardless, V lang is another data point that something besides C is a possibility with the modern tools that we have available to us. Whether or not it pans out is almost immaterial. Just the fact that so many people are finding some sort of success or making some sort of progress in this space is enough for me to continue to watch for any new progress in the C competitors.
  - amedvednikov 8y ago
    Yes, V is at a very early stage. I merely created an "about" page, then it got posted, got lots of attention, so I created a website and recently released a playground: https://vlang.io/play https://vlang.io/play There's still a lot of work to do, but the language is going to be open-sourced very soon in early June.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      i don't want to sound harsh but in 2010s, the way you released (I assume you're V author) mostly make people dubious
      - amedvednikov 8y ago
        Well I haven't released anything yet :) Can you elaborate?
        andrewchambers 8y ago
        Mainly because it seems like you constantly lie and make promises you can't keep. Some of your claims are outrageous without any evidence. Of course I would like to be proven wrong.
        8y ago
earenndil 8y ago
Honestly, I don't see it happening. Zig and rust and jai and d all feast on c's remains, but the result can only be fragmentation. And then you lose one of the big draws of c: ubiquity. Zig has two compilers. Rust has one (serious) compiler. Jai has 1, d has either 1.5 or 3.5 (depending on how you count). And although all those languages want to replace c as the language-that-you-use-for-everything, and they might each be better than c as a language-that-you-use-for-everything, but for a given use a 'lighter' language like python is frequently even better. And it gets to the point where the only languages that allow you to program anything (lisp and perl6, really) are garbage collected and have heavy runtimes, so they won't be taking over games or the os. C might die, but there's no replacing it. Sorry.
- strmpnk 8y ago
  I don't see any single thing replacing C (or C++) but what's interesting here is many of these languages work very well with the C ABI, not just as an FFI concept but with notions of memory and data layout. The interesting side effect might be that we'll see Zig not just work with C code but Zig work with Jai with D with Rust. All of that code can still interface with C or C++ code (in both directions). This lowers the barrier significantly. The hard part is build tool compatibility but I think there are a lot of good ideas being worked on actively, Zig and Rust being two examples of advanced programatic control over the build process. With a reasonable linker, it should be possible to combine these and more languages today. An interesting counter example to the binary interface compatibility story has been Go, which seems to let cgo become less and less functional in each release. The pressure to keep everything in Go is an interesting trade-off. I wonder if certain kinds of systems will be paying for this lock-in later down the line while other languages give much easier ways to gradually evolve and reuse code or adopt libraries from multiple communities removing the need to do yet-another-rewrite in language X kinds of projects. Or perhaps this kind of interoperation is overrated? Time will tell.
  - timClicks 8y ago
    On build processes, it's surprising to me that the Rust community hasn't developed its own linker. I suppose LD works fine.
otabdeveloper1 8y ago
> All these languages are potentially-better systems languages than C/C++ No they are not. C++ has spent decades building "a better C/C++". Any language that ignores those lessons and takes the stance of "learning C++ is too hard, let's go shopping" is doomed to fail.
- moomin 8y ago
  Which of these languages do you think hasn’t learned the lessons of C++? Rust, for instance, has liberally encoded “modern C++” whilst plan not providing a lot of the features that make C++ problematic.
  - otabdeveloper1 8y ago
    Rust is the better choice, but they're still learning about the real world of error handling, generic library code and performance optimization.
- flohofwoe 8y ago
  Apologies for being a bit blunt, but: <rant> For all the time and work poured into C++, it has remarkably little to show over plain old C99. Some of those new "better C" languages are the work of individuals and very small teams, yet they are able to build more progressive "better C" languages than C++ can ever be because it is held back by the need for backward compatibility for 'failed features' and 'design-by-committee'. If all that ever comes out of those small 'better C' languages is some sort of consensus of which core-set of features actually makes a 'better C', than they have already contributed more to programming language development than C++. </rant>
  - p0nce 8y ago
    Here are some things that make C++ better than C - RAII - exceptions - classes and objects - inheritance - templates - the STL C++ is strictly better than C when wielded correctly.
    - 8y ago

by jph 8y ago

MuffinFlavored 8y ago

Isn't V fake? https://github.com/vlang/v https://github.com/vlang/v

saagarjha 8y ago
I wouldn't call it "fake", but yes, it has not been publicly released.
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  I’m honestly way more interested in Jai.
  - xena 8y ago
    Can you link to Jai?
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      https://inductive.no/jai/ https://inductive.no/jai/
    - Cyph0n 8y ago
      Here is a link to a primer written by the community: https://github.com/BSVino/JaiPrimer/blob/master/JaiPrimer.md https://github.com/BSVino/JaiPrimer/blob/master/JaiPrimer.md Right now, the only way to actually see the language in action is to tune in to Jonathan's livestreams on Twitch. He is writing his next game entirely in Jai. He also streams compiler development every now and then (last night was a compiler stream).
verdex_phone 8y ago
That's not particularly charitable. The accidental AMA that happened on HN a few weeks back gave me the impression that V lang isn't as polished as a concept as some of the other offerings out there. BUT the author seemed tp have something brewing. And regardless we'll have some more evidence in the coming months. Regardless, V lang is another data point that something besides C is a possibility with the modern tools that we have available to us. Whether or not it pans out is almost immaterial. Just the fact that so many people are finding some sort of success or making some sort of progress in this space is enough for me to continue to watch for any new progress in the C competitors.
- amedvednikov 8y ago
  Yes, V is at a very early stage. I merely created an "about" page, then it got posted, got lots of attention, so I created a website and recently released a playground: https://vlang.io/play https://vlang.io/play There's still a lot of work to do, but the language is going to be open-sourced very soon in early June.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    i don't want to sound harsh but in 2010s, the way you released (I assume you're V author) mostly make people dubious
    - amedvednikov 8y ago
      Well I haven't released anything yet :) Can you elaborate?
      - andrewchambers 8y ago
        Mainly because it seems like you constantly lie and make promises you can't keep. Some of your claims are outrageous without any evidence. Of course I would like to be proven wrong.
        8y ago

earenndil 8y ago

Honestly, I don't see it happening. Zig and rust and jai and d all feast on c's remains, but the result can only be fragmentation. And then you lose one of the big draws of c: ubiquity. Zig has two compilers. Rust has one (serious) compiler. Jai has 1, d has either 1.5 or 3.5 (depending on how you count). And although all those languages want to replace c as the language-that-you-use-for-everything, and they might each be better than c as a language-that-you-use-for-everything, but for a given use a 'lighter' language like python is frequently even better. And it gets to the point where the only languages that allow you to program anything (lisp and perl6, really) are garbage collected and have heavy runtimes, so they won't be taking over games or the os. C might die, but there's no replacing it. Sorry.

strmpnk 8y ago
I don't see any single thing replacing C (or C++) but what's interesting here is many of these languages work very well with the C ABI, not just as an FFI concept but with notions of memory and data layout. The interesting side effect might be that we'll see Zig not just work with C code but Zig work with Jai with D with Rust. All of that code can still interface with C or C++ code (in both directions). This lowers the barrier significantly. The hard part is build tool compatibility but I think there are a lot of good ideas being worked on actively, Zig and Rust being two examples of advanced programatic control over the build process. With a reasonable linker, it should be possible to combine these and more languages today. An interesting counter example to the binary interface compatibility story has been Go, which seems to let cgo become less and less functional in each release. The pressure to keep everything in Go is an interesting trade-off. I wonder if certain kinds of systems will be paying for this lock-in later down the line while other languages give much easier ways to gradually evolve and reuse code or adopt libraries from multiple communities removing the need to do yet-another-rewrite in language X kinds of projects. Or perhaps this kind of interoperation is overrated? Time will tell.
- timClicks 8y ago
  On build processes, it's surprising to me that the Rust community hasn't developed its own linker. I suppose LD works fine.

otabdeveloper1 8y ago

> All these languages are potentially-better systems languages than C/C++ No they are not. C++ has spent decades building "a better C/C++". Any language that ignores those lessons and takes the stance of "learning C++ is too hard, let's go shopping" is doomed to fail.

moomin 8y ago
Which of these languages do you think hasn’t learned the lessons of C++? Rust, for instance, has liberally encoded “modern C++” whilst plan not providing a lot of the features that make C++ problematic.
- otabdeveloper1 8y ago
  Rust is the better choice, but they're still learning about the real world of error handling, generic library code and performance optimization.
flohofwoe 8y ago
Apologies for being a bit blunt, but: <rant> For all the time and work poured into C++, it has remarkably little to show over plain old C99. Some of those new "better C" languages are the work of individuals and very small teams, yet they are able to build more progressive "better C" languages than C++ can ever be because it is held back by the need for backward compatibility for 'failed features' and 'design-by-committee'. If all that ever comes out of those small 'better C' languages is some sort of consensus of which core-set of features actually makes a 'better C', than they have already contributed more to programming language development than C++. </rant>
- p0nce 8y ago
  Here are some things that make C++ better than C - RAII - exceptions - classes and objects - inheritance - templates - the STL C++ is strictly better than C when wielded correctly.
  - 8y ago