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The new compiler was not a direct port of the old one. It explored fundamentally different design decisions. The new compiler is a better piece of engineering t

The new compiler was not a direct port of the old one. It explored fundamentally different design decisions. The new compiler is a better piece of engineering than the old one. It wasn't strictly extra work. In order to achieve our current feature set and performance characteristics, such changes would have either needed to be done on the old codebase or the new one. It's a pretty easy argument to make that the increased developer velocity from using Zig landed us further along, by this time today, than it would have if we would have invested in the C++ codebase instead. You can argue against that particular claim but what you can't meaningfully do is call the efforts useless.

moloch-hai 4y ago
You found a way to make coding a second compiler useful. But it remains manifestly unnecessary, because everything done in the "second system" (cf.) could have been done with less effort by altering the first. Achieving it demonstrated nothing more about Zig than that there were people willing to take time to do it. Arguments from "velocity" have, in particular, always been unconvincing. People code faster in a language they like, and credit the language, but other people are equally quick in other languages.
- josephg 4y ago
  If that’s true, it sounds like a strong argument to code in a language you personally like. Which is exactly what they’re doing. I’m curious - why does all this seem to bother you so much?
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    "Bother"? Motivation is interesting. Getting all excited over what language a compiler is coded in, far beyond any actually, independently useful program, is objectively weird. C got its legs from a whole OS coded in it. The compiler was very incidental. I don't have any programs in Rust on my SSD. I have one Haskell program: pandoc. I have no Java, C#, Scala, Clojure, Kotlin, or Erlang programs. I have one in Dart I don't use anymore. A substantial, useful program in Zig that would be too much work to re-implement in a mature language would do orders of magnitude more for Zig than a second compiler. Maybe a collection of pipewire modules, or matrix gateways? Perceptions of velocity by language advocates have very, very little to do with actual velocity in industrial settings. The latter is what matters, but is actual work to measure. Anybody measuring seems not to be publishing.
    - Arathorn 4y ago
      We’re actually looking to support Zig as an authoring language for user generated content for Third Room - the spatial collaboration platform for Matrix. Not sure this would be a killer app like a Matrix server or gateway or something, but could help a bunch. https://thenewstack.io/third-room-teases-user-generated-content-for-the-metaverse/ https://thenewstack.io/third-room-teases-user-generated-cont... has more details.
      - moloch-hai 4y ago
        Doesn't seem like it needs much support, as such, being able to use ".h" files directly. You would not want anything that must be depended upon coded in it, in case it fizzles like almost all languages do, but that leaves huge scope for valued additions on top.

moloch-hai 4y ago

You found a way to make coding a second compiler useful. But it remains manifestly unnecessary, because everything done in the "second system" (cf.) could have been done with less effort by altering the first. Achieving it demonstrated nothing more about Zig than that there were people willing to take time to do it. Arguments from "velocity" have, in particular, always been unconvincing. People code faster in a language they like, and credit the language, but other people are equally quick in other languages.

josephg 4y ago
If that’s true, it sounds like a strong argument to code in a language you personally like. Which is exactly what they’re doing. I’m curious - why does all this seem to bother you so much?
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  "Bother"? Motivation is interesting. Getting all excited over what language a compiler is coded in, far beyond any actually, independently useful program, is objectively weird. C got its legs from a whole OS coded in it. The compiler was very incidental. I don't have any programs in Rust on my SSD. I have one Haskell program: pandoc. I have no Java, C#, Scala, Clojure, Kotlin, or Erlang programs. I have one in Dart I don't use anymore. A substantial, useful program in Zig that would be too much work to re-implement in a mature language would do orders of magnitude more for Zig than a second compiler. Maybe a collection of pipewire modules, or matrix gateways? Perceptions of velocity by language advocates have very, very little to do with actual velocity in industrial settings. The latter is what matters, but is actual work to measure. Anybody measuring seems not to be publishing.
  - Arathorn 4y ago
    We’re actually looking to support Zig as an authoring language for user generated content for Third Room - the spatial collaboration platform for Matrix. Not sure this would be a killer app like a Matrix server or gateway or something, but could help a bunch. https://thenewstack.io/third-room-teases-user-generated-content-for-the-metaverse/ https://thenewstack.io/third-room-teases-user-generated-cont... has more details.
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      Doesn't seem like it needs much support, as such, being able to use ".h" files directly. You would not want anything that must be depended upon coded in it, in case it fizzles like almost all languages do, but that leaves huge scope for valued additions on top.