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> In that case, then some valid Zig programs will be rejected, but your type system is now not technically Turing-complete. It's also less powerful; there are g

> In that case, then some valid Zig programs will be rejected, but your type system is now not technically Turing-complete. It's also less powerful; there are going to be things that Zig's type system cannot express. I think you're a bit too high on all this compsci theory stuff. All computations in all languages (including ones generally considered to be turing complete) fail when you run out of resources like RAM or patience. Zig introduces an artificial quantity that can be used as a machine-independent way to ensure all compilations eventually end in either success or failure. It's like a timeout, but an actual timeout would be inconsistent across different machines (with different performance characteristics). The actual state of things is much more boring than what your analysis tries to suggest: comptime is used to do some metaprogramming whose practical value is in good part determined by it not being too crazy, so the fact that you can't make a DisprovesCollatzConjecture type is actually fine. You have found another feature of Zig that's even more mundane than async where you're trying really hard to misunderstand everything to indulge in... "destroying". I think your own wording betrays the fact that you care about needlessly debating people more than actually understanding the tools in front of you in order to produce better software.

gavinhoward 4y ago
Comptime is too crazy. Comptime is powerful, but without that counter, it's effectively uncontained. With that counter, it's contained, but then some comptime stuff needs to be separate, where users lose the benefits of Zig's all-at-once compilation model, a model that is necessary because of the feature of hiding function colors. If you think I care about "needlessly debating people more than actually understanding the tools in front of me," let me dispel that notion. I was once a fan of Zig. Yep. I was. I thought it was great and was even going to rewrite all of my monorepo in it. And then I started studying it in detail, trying to understand it. It took a while, but I came to realize that Zig appears good and has flashy ideas, but that Andrew just didn't understand the consequences of his design decisions. In other words, I spent time trying to understand Zig before I ever got these opinions. To go back to the topic, sure the use of this may appear boring, but if tools have a hard time working with Zig code, so will people. That's my problem with it. You are absolutely right that this is a "boring" part of Zig, but that doesn't mean it's good. It means that that's where complexity hides. Once I figured that out, I realized that to make better software, it would be better for me to stick with C. My wording, by the way, comes from a bit of exasperation because to me, it feels like you, Andrew, and the rest of the Zig team are reluctant to accept criticism or that Zig isn't perfect or even the best.

gavinhoward 4y ago

Comptime is too crazy. Comptime is powerful, but without that counter, it's effectively uncontained. With that counter, it's contained, but then some comptime stuff needs to be separate, where users lose the benefits of Zig's all-at-once compilation model, a model that is necessary because of the feature of hiding function colors. If you think I care about "needlessly debating people more than actually understanding the tools in front of me," let me dispel that notion. I was once a fan of Zig. Yep. I was. I thought it was great and was even going to rewrite all of my monorepo in it. And then I started studying it in detail, trying to understand it. It took a while, but I came to realize that Zig appears good and has flashy ideas, but that Andrew just didn't understand the consequences of his design decisions. In other words, I spent time trying to understand Zig before I ever got these opinions. To go back to the topic, sure the use of this may appear boring, but if tools have a hard time working with Zig code, so will people. That's my problem with it. You are absolutely right that this is a "boring" part of Zig, but that doesn't mean it's good. It means that that's where complexity hides. Once I figured that out, I realized that to make better software, it would be better for me to stick with C. My wording, by the way, comes from a bit of exasperation because to me, it feels like you, Andrew, and the rest of the Zig team are reluctant to accept criticism or that Zig isn't perfect or even the best.