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But isn't the position of a "Better C", already covered too, by languages such as D? And I mean literally too, with their "-betterC". There is arguably no pla

by Tozen 4y ago

But isn't the position of a "Better C", already covered too, by languages such as D? And I mean literally too, with their "-betterC". There is arguably no place for Zig to go, along the "better C" route, that hasn't been covered by other languages. And languages like D and Object Pascal, are way up on the charts, so it will be a hard climb to reach them in popularity. Even the much older Nim language (which has been called a C alternative), still hasn't cracked the top 50, among language rankings. Debatably, a language's "claim to fame" (to escape niche status), can't just be about being a more complex C replacement. There has to be other things about it, that it can firmly stand on, for greater mass appeal.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
D is garbage collected and requires a runtime. Object pascal appears to be pascal with classes. Both of them have exceptions and operator overloading. Zig is smaller than object pascal or D, and closer to the metal than D, it's arguably simpler than C as it's more regular, has no hidden control flow and has no separate preprocessor. The unique things it's attempting to do are manual memory management with handrails (not dissimilar to pascal, but maybe with a few more handrails like testing allocator), error handling with better erganomics than go, rust, or unchecked exceptions (but slightly less power), and comptime which afaik is unique and is where it provides much of the power to do things like generics, many kinds of composition, or even implement a borrow checker and lifetimes as user code (with terrible erganomics and poor performance, but it's illustrative of its power). The thing it stands on for mass appeal is trivial interop with C and the zig compiler is a functional, statically linked C toolchain out of the box and is easier for a beginner to do things like cross compile on than gcc or clang msvcc or similar. Additionally it has the power and simplicity of C with fewer footguns (ie. it attempts to cover some of pascal's strengths, but on the balance I like pascal more as a teaching language). It also shares some of nim's goals like fast compilation and hot code reloading. The thing I'm personally interested in is the type system and semantics of comptime seem to have all the ingredients required for formal verification with no additions to the language, translations to a prover, or annotations (but it would require extending the compiler's abilities considerably). This is unique if true (but I will lack the skills to find out if it is true for a while yet, and the people closer to it are busy with other things). Whether it will succeed, or the comptime concept is fatally flawed in some way is as yet unknown, but it does fill out a currently empty niche as a simpler C, it is not trying to be yet another more complex C. I think its main competitor if it is successful will be go. Go is slightly higher level, arguably marginally simpler and considerably less powerful out of the box (at least last time I looked before the latest generics stuff). The last two are arguably in its favour for being a better C.
- Tozen 4y ago
  The languages which are closer to Go, are Vlang and Odin. With Vlang also having a focus on C interop as well (importing C libraries, C2V transpiler, and ability to be compiled to human-readable C). These debatably have a much better shot, with being viable alternatives to Go, in terms of use cases. Zig is arguably in a different category and appears targeted to a more limited or lower space, in terms of general programming, which brings it more in the orbit of Rust. It's made clear that Zig's features and size will be purposely kept to the minimum, though its syntax is significantly complex. Which may hamper it, as it appears such complexity does to Rust, in terms of being picked up for general usage. It's hard to say how attempting to be a "better Rust" or attempts at taking on C, will work out. But, it does seem clear it's not going for more general and wide usage that languages such as Object Pascal, D, or Go cover. By the way, Object Pascal can be written where it comes quite close to classical Pascal, as classes are extensions of the language and more optional than required (see also advanced Records and/or Objects). Object Pascal is used in embedded systems, along with various dialects of Pascal, specific for the purpose. There are also various variants of Go, aimed directly at embedded development (TinyGo). So variants of Go and Pascal can more directly compete with Zig, and they are already well established (like Rust is). Now how this will all turn out, in say 5 years from now, anybody's guess. But, it will be an uphill climb for Zig, as for any new language trying to displace established ones. Vlang documentation (https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/doc/docs.md https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/doc/docs.md) Odin documentation (https://odin-lang.org/docs/overview/ https://odin-lang.org/docs/overview/). Golang by example (https://golangbyexample.com/ https://golangbyexample.com/)
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    > Zig is arguably in a different category and appears targeted to a more limited or lower space, in terms of general programming, which brings it more in the orbit of Rust. It's made clear that Zig's features and size will be purposely kept to the minimum, though its syntax is significantly complex. Which may hamper it, as it appears such complexity does to Rust, in terms of being picked up for general usage. I don't understand the basis on which you're saying this. From where I'm standing only odin looks simpler, the other two just make different tradeoffs -- namely trading reduced metaprogramming facilities (and the danger of complexity that entails on user code) for more language features. > It's hard to say how attempting to be a "better Rust" or attempts at taking on C, will work out. But, it does seem clear it's not going for more general and wide usage that languages such as Object Pascal, D, or Go cover. D and Go are closer to rust than zig is, and object pascal is also just another OO language. Of those, only Go is even attempting to be a better C, but requiring a runtime prevents it from being a true competitor.

by Tozen 4y ago

Schroedingersat 4y ago

D is garbage collected and requires a runtime. Object pascal appears to be pascal with classes. Both of them have exceptions and operator overloading. Zig is smaller than object pascal or D, and closer to the metal than D, it's arguably simpler than C as it's more regular, has no hidden control flow and has no separate preprocessor. The unique things it's attempting to do are manual memory management with handrails (not dissimilar to pascal, but maybe with a few more handrails like testing allocator), error handling with better erganomics than go, rust, or unchecked exceptions (but slightly less power), and comptime which afaik is unique and is where it provides much of the power to do things like generics, many kinds of composition, or even implement a borrow checker and lifetimes as user code (with terrible erganomics and poor performance, but it's illustrative of its power). The thing it stands on for mass appeal is trivial interop with C and the zig compiler is a functional, statically linked C toolchain out of the box and is easier for a beginner to do things like cross compile on than gcc or clang msvcc or similar. Additionally it has the power and simplicity of C with fewer footguns (ie. it attempts to cover some of pascal's strengths, but on the balance I like pascal more as a teaching language). It also shares some of nim's goals like fast compilation and hot code reloading. The thing I'm personally interested in is the type system and semantics of comptime seem to have all the ingredients required for formal verification with no additions to the language, translations to a prover, or annotations (but it would require extending the compiler's abilities considerably). This is unique if true (but I will lack the skills to find out if it is true for a while yet, and the people closer to it are busy with other things). Whether it will succeed, or the comptime concept is fatally flawed in some way is as yet unknown, but it does fill out a currently empty niche as a simpler C, it is not trying to be yet another more complex C. I think its main competitor if it is successful will be go. Go is slightly higher level, arguably marginally simpler and considerably less powerful out of the box (at least last time I looked before the latest generics stuff). The last two are arguably in its favour for being a better C.

Tozen 4y ago
The languages which are closer to Go, are Vlang and Odin. With Vlang also having a focus on C interop as well (importing C libraries, C2V transpiler, and ability to be compiled to human-readable C). These debatably have a much better shot, with being viable alternatives to Go, in terms of use cases. Zig is arguably in a different category and appears targeted to a more limited or lower space, in terms of general programming, which brings it more in the orbit of Rust. It's made clear that Zig's features and size will be purposely kept to the minimum, though its syntax is significantly complex. Which may hamper it, as it appears such complexity does to Rust, in terms of being picked up for general usage. It's hard to say how attempting to be a "better Rust" or attempts at taking on C, will work out. But, it does seem clear it's not going for more general and wide usage that languages such as Object Pascal, D, or Go cover. By the way, Object Pascal can be written where it comes quite close to classical Pascal, as classes are extensions of the language and more optional than required (see also advanced Records and/or Objects). Object Pascal is used in embedded systems, along with various dialects of Pascal, specific for the purpose. There are also various variants of Go, aimed directly at embedded development (TinyGo). So variants of Go and Pascal can more directly compete with Zig, and they are already well established (like Rust is). Now how this will all turn out, in say 5 years from now, anybody's guess. But, it will be an uphill climb for Zig, as for any new language trying to displace established ones. Vlang documentation (https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/doc/docs.md https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/doc/docs.md) Odin documentation (https://odin-lang.org/docs/overview/ https://odin-lang.org/docs/overview/). Golang by example (https://golangbyexample.com/ https://golangbyexample.com/)
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > Zig is arguably in a different category and appears targeted to a more limited or lower space, in terms of general programming, which brings it more in the orbit of Rust. It's made clear that Zig's features and size will be purposely kept to the minimum, though its syntax is significantly complex. Which may hamper it, as it appears such complexity does to Rust, in terms of being picked up for general usage. I don't understand the basis on which you're saying this. From where I'm standing only odin looks simpler, the other two just make different tradeoffs -- namely trading reduced metaprogramming facilities (and the danger of complexity that entails on user code) for more language features. > It's hard to say how attempting to be a "better Rust" or attempts at taking on C, will work out. But, it does seem clear it's not going for more general and wide usage that languages such as Object Pascal, D, or Go cover. D and Go are closer to rust than zig is, and object pascal is also just another OO language. Of those, only Go is even attempting to be a better C, but requiring a runtime prevents it from being a true competitor.