9 ms·

I've been seeing a lot of posts about Zig recently. Out of curiosity is there a specific reason these are more common (like a recent big project or release)?

• dnautics 5y ago
  Just fyi, zig 1.0 is likely years out.
• isaiahg 5y ago
  The people who like zig really like zig so they upvote it to the top while the people who don't like zig are at worst indifferent to it. So no one really complains. But we're starting to reach the point where zig is becoming popular and people will hate it for that alone very soon. Because we're all really just cavemen typing on keyboards and we can't even discuss how to encode text strings without descending into tribal war.
  • gompertz 5y ago
    Ironically, V programming language has 2-3x the amount of github stars (decent measure of popularity) to zig/nim, yet has been the brunt of general hate here on HN from day one. (Mostly, as I can tell, due to some single individual blog Christine something?;that everyone has taken as gospel).
    • saagarjha 5y ago
      That blog post put into words a sentiment that had been around for quite a while.
    • Tomte 5y ago
      https://christine.website/blog/v-vaporware-2019-06-23 https://christine.website/blog/v-vaporware-2019-06-23
      • DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
        never heard of V and this blog was the introduction I didn't know I needed. beautiful but brutal :D ... thank you
        • gompertz 5y ago
          Don't forget the post is 2.5 years old... Lots has evolved.
    • kaba0 5y ago
      The V website did in fact contain impossibly wild claims that were taken down when called out. Add to the fact that it was closed source for a long time, but had an ongoing patreon, you could easily see the possibility of a scam in all that. And I personally haven’t seen evidence to the contrary still.
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      V was also called out by Andrew Kelly (Zig's originator) and Ginger Bill (of Odinlang fame). A lot of people who knew stuff about compilers and languages had things to say about it, it wasn't just one blog.
    • detaro 5y ago
      github stars are a pretty crappy measure of anything. maybe for "people who've seen it and thought it looked vaguely interesting" (which something like V that makes a big splash with gigantic promises easily hits), but even that is vague, given how differently people use them. (People making a big deal out of them is a pretty good negative signal though)
    • isaiahg 5y ago
      Thankfully much of the controversy around V has escaped me. The clashes between proponents and detractors has mostly occurred on my periphery and it comes across rather silly to me. And I realize that will make me unpopular with both sides. It reminds me more of highschoolers arguing rather than than engineers actually trying to solve something, in that no one is fully wrong and everyone is a little bit right. One side should realize they're deriding a project that's still in its infancy and it's bound to be unfinished, buggy, off-kilter, and missing features that are still more or less just rough ideas in the heads of the creators. The same can be said for any early project. And one side needs to accept the creators were a bit overzealous and advertised features that we're really just rough ideas in their heads. And that fighting criticism with anger just makes those criticizing double down in their energy and aggressiveness. I'm sure V will be a fine language some day. I actually like the simple style of Go's syntax. It's a breath of fresh air when you're up to your neck in "Value<double, SIUnits::m> distance;" Though I question if it actually brings anything new more than some nicer syntax. I might wait until it's closer to a v1 and make something in it for my blog.
      • gompertz 5y ago
        Thanks for saying all this, probably one of the more mature insights. Personally I find V to already be a fine language - it improves on everything I feel Go just slightly missed the mark on. Regarding the hostility towards the performance claims; even if they aren't reaching those claims, the language is nonetheless extremely fast - so fast, that missing the claims is a mute point from a user perspective. It uses TCC on the backend; which everyone knows, and nobody disputes, is a very small and fast compiler. I understand/derive people are maybe upset the author is getting Patreon/Github donations based (in their opinion) on these 'false' claims. I don't think that's the case at all - people are thinking it's causation, when it's mere correlation. It's a still-obscure language, and it's not like they are selling Norwex cleaning supplies at a convention of everyday people walking by. The landing page isn't attracting your family relative, compelling them to donate money on Patreon. It's an extremely small group of people that are going to pay even the slightest interest to the project. People who have an interest in a boutique languages and providing monetary support are more than likely doing so out of interest in the project's goals (obtainable, or otherwise), appealing syntax, ambitions of the author, github activity, and general goodness; not solely off some bullets on a landing page - especially in a world where we know 99% of that is always shilled bullshit from VC's, bigbox products, etc. etc. Undoubtedly, the author could have maybe done better PR - who doesn't stumble at first though? Like, really. Everything I see referenced is from articles 2.5-3 years old... from a single blog to boot. Notwithstanding, the donations (which seem to be the target of most peoples comments), are around $1,000/month; this isn't really a large amount of money; but people are acting like this is $20,000/month.
    • Tozen 5y ago
      Not only is the blog post from 2 and a half years ago, but it was bashing the very first alpha release of the V programming language (vlang) that just hit GitHub at that time. Could you imagine doing a brutal bashing of Zig or Nim, the first week it came out? Then claiming they're vaporware? Make it make sense. An alpha of a programming language, much less a program, isn't feature complete on day one. This should be common sense. Trying to label a brand new alpha as vaporware is inappropriate at best. A fair and unbiased critic gives a project a reasonable period of time to prove itself, not attempt to prematurely stomp all over it. Looks wrong to do so, at the least. Even crazier is then using that very old blog post, as the "be all, say all" for the state of the V language versus actually looking on GitHub and the documentation. V has been consistently coming out with weekly releases (https://github.com/vlang/v/releases https://github.com/vlang/v/releases) and updates for years now.
  • socialdemocrat 5y ago
    It is like Newton’s second law or something: anything deeply loved must be hated by an equal number of people with equal intensity. Otherwise there will not be balance in the force… or something.
    • 3a2d29 5y ago
      Hahaha can this please become a internet proverb
• fulafel 5y ago
  It has many of the virtues of Rust, and lacking some of the sins, probably HN likes it for the same reasons as Rust. Rust also took a while to make it onto the radar but then it was popping up more frequently.
• sharikous 5y ago
  Somehow zig has become the "new C" and Rust has become the "new C++" in the community, I guess. I don't think there is something strange about the recent days. Sometimes there are small waves about that and there have been in the past.
• ksec 5y ago
  >I've been seeing a lot of posts about Zig recently. About 4 reached HN front page in the past 30 days. Not really that much. And that is already considered an outliner in the history of Zig.