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I don't think it's fair to dismiss some of those, like Rust. That project very explicitly wants to be viable as a safe tool for writing systems code, and the fa
by hansvm 6y ago
I don't think it's fair to dismiss some of those, like Rust. That project very explicitly wants to be viable as a safe tool for writing systems code, and the fact that it's accumulated a lot of complexity doesn't take away that intent (or the fact that it's being successfully used in that capacity).
That said, I am super excited about the Zig project, and it hits a sweet spot for me in a way that none of the other "C but better" projects have. Calling it another "C but better" language wasn't an attempt to disparage the project, but to classify it.
- yellowapple 6y ago> That project very explicitly wants to be viable as a safe tool for writing systems code Right, but that's a (slightly) different goal from being a C replacement. There are other systems languages besides C, and C is used beyond systems programming.
- hansvm 6y agoI guess we're disagreeing about the semantics of "C but better" then. Your position seems to be that a contender would need to be able to replace (and improve) C generally, and I don't totally agree (not that you need to be convinced, but I'll elaborate on my interpretation anyway). E.g., if somebody came along and said that C would be bloody perfect if it just had a garbage collector then that alternative language would be totally unsuitable as a replacement for C in many contexts, but for a ton of other scenarios it'd still be "C but better," and I don't know that it should be disqualified just because it isn't a full replacement.