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I get this feeling its a one / two / three man I want to write a compiler phase. I seen dozens of these languages over the years. I looked at the language, and

I get this feeling its a one / two / three man I want to write a compiler phase. I seen dozens of these languages over the years. I looked at the language, and without something revolutionary, this will die a slow death. I think it is experiencing that , main developer(s) are using crowd funding and nothing has really been "wow". I was right about dart and flutter being the next big one. However, zig is a dead language in a grave yard of 100s. It tries to revolution coding without changing the methodology.

jimbob45 5y ago
Dart has a lot of really neat features that should have caught on in other languages by now. In particular, the Dart ".." operator, implicit interfaces on every declared class, and mixins really should have made their ways to C# and Java by now.
kristoff_it 5y ago
I'd say comptime and having enough features to be better than C at using and (cross-) compiling C libraries is somewhat revolutionary.
anonymoushn 5y ago
Were you right about Dart being the next dead language or the next language propped up by Google? We're having a great time using Zig in production. Thanks.
- ArtixFox 5y ago
  nice! where are u using zig in production?
nick__m 5y ago
To me Zig doesn't seems like a zombie. * It is actively developed, has frequent releases and it is steered toward a stable 1.0 * The crowd funding model proves that some users want that language. * It doesn't try to revolutionize coding, it tries to be a better C, hence the wowlessness Nim¹ and Crystal² have probably more chances of eventually becoming dead languages but I hope they don't as they are both fun languages. 1- https://nim-lang.org/ https://nim-lang.org/ : Nim is a statically type checked compiled Pythonesque language with a type system residing somewhere between Pascal and Ada. 2- https://crystal-lang.org/ https://crystal-lang.org/ : Crystal is a statically type checked compiled Ruby-like language.
- jasfi 5y ago
  I've been using Nim for a few years now. You're right, it is fun, by syntax alone. The performance is great, too. The development of Nim has been slower than some would like, but this has not been a problem for me.
jmull 5y ago
> main developer(s) are using crowd funding and nothing has really been "wow" It's funny: I think these are both positive signs. The weight of history tells us that the overwhelming majority of new languages will die. So, in that sense, I agree zig probably will too. However, I think it's worth separating languages into ones that have essentially zero chance to survive long-term, and those that have a reasonable non-zero chance to succeed (and those in the middle). To me, zig is the most promising "better C" (which is why I'm one of those people crowd-funding zig). Since I think we really need a better C, I think zig is on the side of those with a reasonable non-zero chance to succeed. Some things that might get it over the hump: Zig aspires not just to be a better C, but a better C compiler. It includes a first-class C compiler (Clang/LLVM), and adds first class cross-compiling support. Along with native C integration and a language designed to appeal to C programmers, it's potentially low-friction to adopt in places where one would go to C now. That is, it seems to me there is a viable, incremental path from C to Zig. (Incremental is important. E.g., even if zig succeeds, there won't be a RIIZ movement because there's no need. People will write or rewrite as it makes sense for their project, not their programming language.) I get that zig is a work-in-progress, and that it may well not succeed. Just that it looks like it has the best chance to me (or maybe it's just that I like the approach it is taking).
flohofwoe 5y ago
Anecdotal, but I had a strong and immediate "wow" feeling when I first looked at Zig which I didn't have with most of the other "better C" languages before. Also, not having a big company behind is a good thing, not a disadvantage (because it means that bad design decisions can't be forced on users just because of the "it's made by Google or Apple, so it must be good" effect - as a real world example for this problem, see WebAudio). PS: Dart being the next big thing, or the next big flop? Because from my bubble, Dart and Flutter don't look all that popular.

jimbob45 5y ago

Dart has a lot of really neat features that should have caught on in other languages by now. In particular, the Dart ".." operator, implicit interfaces on every declared class, and mixins really should have made their ways to C# and Java by now.

kristoff_it 5y ago

I'd say comptime and having enough features to be better than C at using and (cross-) compiling C libraries is somewhat revolutionary.

anonymoushn 5y ago

Were you right about Dart being the next dead language or the next language propped up by Google? We're having a great time using Zig in production. Thanks.

ArtixFox 5y ago
nice! where are u using zig in production?

nick__m 5y ago

To me Zig doesn't seems like a zombie. * It is actively developed, has frequent releases and it is steered toward a stable 1.0 * The crowd funding model proves that some users want that language. * It doesn't try to revolutionize coding, it tries to be a better C, hence the wowlessness Nim¹ and Crystal² have probably more chances of eventually becoming dead languages but I hope they don't as they are both fun languages. 1- https://nim-lang.org/ https://nim-lang.org/ : Nim is a statically type checked compiled Pythonesque language with a type system residing somewhere between Pascal and Ada. 2- https://crystal-lang.org/ https://crystal-lang.org/ : Crystal is a statically type checked compiled Ruby-like language.

jasfi 5y ago
I've been using Nim for a few years now. You're right, it is fun, by syntax alone. The performance is great, too. The development of Nim has been slower than some would like, but this has not been a problem for me.

jmull 5y ago

> main developer(s) are using crowd funding and nothing has really been "wow" It's funny: I think these are both positive signs. The weight of history tells us that the overwhelming majority of new languages will die. So, in that sense, I agree zig probably will too. However, I think it's worth separating languages into ones that have essentially zero chance to survive long-term, and those that have a reasonable non-zero chance to succeed (and those in the middle). To me, zig is the most promising "better C" (which is why I'm one of those people crowd-funding zig). Since I think we really need a better C, I think zig is on the side of those with a reasonable non-zero chance to succeed. Some things that might get it over the hump: Zig aspires not just to be a better C, but a better C compiler. It includes a first-class C compiler (Clang/LLVM), and adds first class cross-compiling support. Along with native C integration and a language designed to appeal to C programmers, it's potentially low-friction to adopt in places where one would go to C now. That is, it seems to me there is a viable, incremental path from C to Zig. (Incremental is important. E.g., even if zig succeeds, there won't be a RIIZ movement because there's no need. People will write or rewrite as it makes sense for their project, not their programming language.) I get that zig is a work-in-progress, and that it may well not succeed. Just that it looks like it has the best chance to me (or maybe it's just that I like the approach it is taking).

flohofwoe 5y ago

Anecdotal, but I had a strong and immediate "wow" feeling when I first looked at Zig which I didn't have with most of the other "better C" languages before. Also, not having a big company behind is a good thing, not a disadvantage (because it means that bad design decisions can't be forced on users just because of the "it's made by Google or Apple, so it must be good" effect - as a real world example for this problem, see WebAudio). PS: Dart being the next big thing, or the next big flop? Because from my bubble, Dart and Flutter don't look all that popular.