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I suspect that Zig will still end up eclipsing Rust - not because it's a "more powerful" language, but because it's much easier to learn. Lower barriers of entr

by fouric 6y ago

I suspect that Zig will still end up eclipsing Rust - not because it's a "more powerful" language, but because it's much easier to learn. Lower barriers of entry seem to matter more than mere "power" - see Common Lisp's multi-decade feature lead being ignored, and Python leapfrogging other more capable languages (Common Lisp) or equally capable ones that came first (Ruby) due to ease-of-use.

gameswithgo 6y ago
I think Zig could end up being much more popular for domains where Rust's safety and correctness features are less important. Something like a bluetooth stack is exactly where Rust is ideal though imho. Some for crypto libs.
- geraneum 6y ago
  I believe the number of domains which benefit from Rust’s safety features combined with its runtime performance are vast. IoT, hardware drivers, autonomous systems, embedded systems, (cars, drones) infrastructure, etc. I would choose Rust in these scenarios if I have choice. I understand that the language has a steeper learning curve but it’s an upfront cost compared to C (or Zig?) where you have to put even more effort later on chasing the same bugs which Rust could’ve protected you from. I don’t know Zig well enough so I’m not arguing against it. It’s just what I think about being safe vs being easier to learn. But I see your point. At the end of the day, the growth of the language happens almost organically and might not follow the logic I put forward.
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    I think of Zig as a quarter step between C and Rust. You don't get memory safety, but you DO get better handling of undefined behavior, and option types, and better protection from array bounds overruns. So like a single player video game, it might be an easier overall choice, in a hypothetical world where ecosystems are similarly fleshed out.
ModernMech 6y ago
Rust isn't that hard to learn. I teach it to college sophomores who only know Java, and within 2-3 months I have them writing parsers and interpreters in Rust. In fact these students are requesting our courses to be taught in Rust, and have never heard of Zig. I think that while the language is a little complicated, this is tempered by how nice the tooling is. I consider the borrow checker to be my TA, as it actually helps the student write code that is structured better. When they go on to write C and C++ in later courses, their code is actually more memory safe due to having their habits having been shaped by Rust.
- moldavi 6y ago
  I'd imagine given another language (e.g. Python), they'd learn a lot faster and be a lot more prodictive throughout the course.
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    Python is way too ad-hoc to be a good teaching language in a professional context. It's designed to teach kids and first-time coders, as an alternative to BASIC.
    - dagmx 6y ago
      I think that wholly depends on the context. Python is a great teaching language IMHO if the goal is to teach how to get things done. It's not a good language if you're teaching how things do work under the hood. To me it's the difference between programming and computer science.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - dagmx 6y ago
    Possibly but Python is a completely different level of programming too. I do wonder if Rust is easier or harder than other comparable languages like C / C++ when the person has no prior knowledge of programming. I would say just the ease of having a hello world and the ease of the Rust book would make it easier to get to grips with. No dealing with complex build systems and compiler flags at the start
kllrnohj 6y ago
Zig is too uninteresting to eclipse anything. It's the same problem as D's -betterC option. It's not better-enough to motivate switching away from C in places where C is still used, and it's far too stripped down & basic to attract the majority that's gone to C++, Rust, Go, ObjC, or Swift (or even "full" D). It doesn't offer much to justify switching costs. If C++11 had never happened then maybe Zig would attract the C++ crowd, but today? Zig also seems far too opinionated & even self-contradictory. Like no hidden control flow means that you can't have operator overloading because apparently the + operator is invisible to people or something. And if it could be overridden it could call a function (gasp!) or throw an exception (double gasp!), followed immediately by a big section about how the + operator internally is hidden control flow and can throw an exception (overflow checking). It then also constantly claims itself as being small & simple, but it has compile-time reflection & evaluation for templated functions - which is widely considered the main complexity of C++. I think Zig is better overall having this feature, I love constexpr & friends in C++, but compile-time code generation & evaluation over generic types is also not "simple" nor "small".
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > It's not better-enough to motivate switching away from C in places where C is still used I suspect zig will eventually fill this niche. Proper arrays and strings and better compile time execution support while still being a small, simple, explicit language are quite significant improvements on C.
  - kllrnohj 6y ago
    But why wouldn't I use Rust in those scenarios, which gives me even more safety & compile-time bug checking? Zig isn't actually a small or simple language, after all, that's just marketing bullshit. Manual, mostly unassisted memory management isn't simple, and compile time evaluation & reflection isn't small. It keeps making claims about being simpler because it doesn't have macros or metaprogramming, but that's incredibly deceptive at best since it does have compile-time code generation (aka, metaprogramming). It's how Zig's printf function works! https://ziglang.org/documentation/0.7.1/#Case-Study-printf-in-Zig https://ziglang.org/documentation/0.7.1/#Case-Study-printf-i... And as a bonus Rust includes a package manager today, instead of a coming eventually promise. So I'm not seeing why I'd ever go with Zig over Rust if I was migrating off of C today?
ampdepolymerase 6y ago
Common Lisp had itself and its community to blame. Their dependency managers were decades behind other scripting languages. Poor defaults for build tooling. Even now building a statically-linked binary is an exercise in frustration. Despite being an ANSI specified language, the most popular libraries focuses only on SBCL. CL is like Lua where most interpreters never achieve 100% compatibility with each other. The lack of Emacs/Vim alternatives demands beginners to adhere to their dogma. Adhering to their cargo cult might be reasonable if they are the dominant language and culture. But they are not. Software engineering classes in university teaches how to make Java AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBeans first and caml/lisp much later. Common lisp had it coming when they had their lunch eaten by Clojure. They were an old irrelevant relic that sat on their ivory tower and refused to improve or confront the status quo beyond empty words. And it is not like the Common Lisp community lacks resources. They claim their language is used at Google via ITA software and in GOFAI through Grammarly. Even the bleeding edge of computing through Regetti. Then where are all the maintained, up to date tooling and libraries? Do a quick search and almost everything is unmaintained or half dead, with the usual generic excuse being "we are ANSI specified, libraries twenty years ago will work perfectly fine". HN is an echo chamber for the greatness of Lisp where every commenter would worship at its church before going back to coding JS/Python/Java on Monday.
- anthk 6y ago
  You forgot Scheme.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  "We were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp." - Guy Steele, Java spec co-author
pjmlp 6y ago
Only if they fix the language to cover use after free errors.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
I don't think so, too many heavy hitters are adopting rust, and rust has the advantage in adoption across the board. To beat rust you have to be at least 2-10X as desirable as rust.

by fouric 6y ago

gameswithgo 6y ago

I think Zig could end up being much more popular for domains where Rust's safety and correctness features are less important. Something like a bluetooth stack is exactly where Rust is ideal though imho. Some for crypto libs.

geraneum 6y ago
I believe the number of domains which benefit from Rust’s safety features combined with its runtime performance are vast. IoT, hardware drivers, autonomous systems, embedded systems, (cars, drones) infrastructure, etc. I would choose Rust in these scenarios if I have choice. I understand that the language has a steeper learning curve but it’s an upfront cost compared to C (or Zig?) where you have to put even more effort later on chasing the same bugs which Rust could’ve protected you from. I don’t know Zig well enough so I’m not arguing against it. It’s just what I think about being safe vs being easier to learn. But I see your point. At the end of the day, the growth of the language happens almost organically and might not follow the logic I put forward.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  I think of Zig as a quarter step between C and Rust. You don't get memory safety, but you DO get better handling of undefined behavior, and option types, and better protection from array bounds overruns. So like a single player video game, it might be an easier overall choice, in a hypothetical world where ecosystems are similarly fleshed out.

ModernMech 6y ago

Rust isn't that hard to learn. I teach it to college sophomores who only know Java, and within 2-3 months I have them writing parsers and interpreters in Rust. In fact these students are requesting our courses to be taught in Rust, and have never heard of Zig. I think that while the language is a little complicated, this is tempered by how nice the tooling is. I consider the borrow checker to be my TA, as it actually helps the student write code that is structured better. When they go on to write C and C++ in later courses, their code is actually more memory safe due to having their habits having been shaped by Rust.

moldavi 6y ago
I'd imagine given another language (e.g. Python), they'd learn a lot faster and be a lot more prodictive throughout the course.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  Python is way too ad-hoc to be a good teaching language in a professional context. It's designed to teach kids and first-time coders, as an alternative to BASIC.
  - dagmx 6y ago
    I think that wholly depends on the context. Python is a great teaching language IMHO if the goal is to teach how to get things done. It's not a good language if you're teaching how things do work under the hood. To me it's the difference between programming and computer science.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- dagmx 6y ago
  Possibly but Python is a completely different level of programming too. I do wonder if Rust is easier or harder than other comparable languages like C / C++ when the person has no prior knowledge of programming. I would say just the ease of having a hello world and the ease of the Rust book would make it easier to get to grips with. No dealing with complex build systems and compiler flags at the start

kllrnohj 6y ago

Zig is too uninteresting to eclipse anything. It's the same problem as D's -betterC option. It's not better-enough to motivate switching away from C in places where C is still used, and it's far too stripped down & basic to attract the majority that's gone to C++, Rust, Go, ObjC, or Swift (or even "full" D). It doesn't offer much to justify switching costs. If C++11 had never happened then maybe Zig would attract the C++ crowd, but today? Zig also seems far too opinionated & even self-contradictory. Like no hidden control flow means that you can't have operator overloading because apparently the + operator is invisible to people or something. And if it could be overridden it could call a function (gasp!) or throw an exception (double gasp!), followed immediately by a big section about how the + operator internally is hidden control flow and can throw an exception (overflow checking). It then also constantly claims itself as being small & simple, but it has compile-time reflection & evaluation for templated functions - which is widely considered the main complexity of C++. I think Zig is better overall having this feature, I love constexpr & friends in C++, but compile-time code generation & evaluation over generic types is also not "simple" nor "small".

nicoburns 6y ago
> It's not better-enough to motivate switching away from C in places where C is still used I suspect zig will eventually fill this niche. Proper arrays and strings and better compile time execution support while still being a small, simple, explicit language are quite significant improvements on C.
- kllrnohj 6y ago
  But why wouldn't I use Rust in those scenarios, which gives me even more safety & compile-time bug checking? Zig isn't actually a small or simple language, after all, that's just marketing bullshit. Manual, mostly unassisted memory management isn't simple, and compile time evaluation & reflection isn't small. It keeps making claims about being simpler because it doesn't have macros or metaprogramming, but that's incredibly deceptive at best since it does have compile-time code generation (aka, metaprogramming). It's how Zig's printf function works! https://ziglang.org/documentation/0.7.1/#Case-Study-printf-in-Zig https://ziglang.org/documentation/0.7.1/#Case-Study-printf-i... And as a bonus Rust includes a package manager today, instead of a coming eventually promise. So I'm not seeing why I'd ever go with Zig over Rust if I was migrating off of C today?

ampdepolymerase 6y ago

Common Lisp had itself and its community to blame. Their dependency managers were decades behind other scripting languages. Poor defaults for build tooling. Even now building a statically-linked binary is an exercise in frustration. Despite being an ANSI specified language, the most popular libraries focuses only on SBCL. CL is like Lua where most interpreters never achieve 100% compatibility with each other. The lack of Emacs/Vim alternatives demands beginners to adhere to their dogma. Adhering to their cargo cult might be reasonable if they are the dominant language and culture. But they are not. Software engineering classes in university teaches how to make Java AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBeans first and caml/lisp much later. Common lisp had it coming when they had their lunch eaten by Clojure. They were an old irrelevant relic that sat on their ivory tower and refused to improve or confront the status quo beyond empty words. And it is not like the Common Lisp community lacks resources. They claim their language is used at Google via ITA software and in GOFAI through Grammarly. Even the bleeding edge of computing through Regetti. Then where are all the maintained, up to date tooling and libraries? Do a quick search and almost everything is unmaintained or half dead, with the usual generic excuse being "we are ANSI specified, libraries twenty years ago will work perfectly fine". HN is an echo chamber for the greatness of Lisp where every commenter would worship at its church before going back to coding JS/Python/Java on Monday.

anthk 6y ago
You forgot Scheme.
pjmlp 6y ago
"We were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp." - Guy Steele, Java spec co-author

pjmlp 6y ago

Only if they fix the language to cover use after free errors.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

I don't think so, too many heavy hitters are adopting rust, and rust has the advantage in adoption across the board. To beat rust you have to be at least 2-10X as desirable as rust.