3 ms·

Compilation time for most modern languages (Rust, Zig, Swift) is, to say the least, not great. I consider this a major hindrance for productivity. Fast iterat

Compilation time for most modern languages (Rust, Zig, Swift) is, to say the least, not great. I consider this a major hindrance for productivity. Fast iteration/test cycle is the best way to stay in the flow while fixing small bugs on the go. I'd say the limit for me is about five seconds, but I find it much better when I can keep it below one second. I think that Jai is engineered to have fast compilation in debug mode, I hope that will be the case once released.

bsaul 3y ago
Zig is slow as well ??
- quic5 3y ago
  The biggest bottleneck in Zig's case is LLVM. That's why they implement fast alternative backends for development. See: https://kristoff.it/blog/zig-new-relationship-llvm/ https://kristoff.it/blog/zig-new-relationship-llvm/
  - bsaul 3y ago
    looks like the project's now abandonned : https://github.com/ziglang/zig/projects/2 https://github.com/ziglang/zig/projects/2
    - hsn915 3y ago
      This comment suggests otherwise: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/89#issuecomment-1221188076 https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/89#issuecomment-122118... Although I'm not sure the "self hosted compiler" is the same as "llvm free backend".
      - stefncb 3y ago
        It's not. The self-hosted compiler still uses llvm, and it's still slow because of it.
    - TUSF 3y ago
      "self-hosted compiler" in this case means moving all the non-LLVM code (which was previously in C++) to Zig itself.
  - Patrickmi 3y ago
    One thing I hate about LLVM is that once you get into the ecosystem to get “another alternative” or “abandon LLVM” it’s like hell, you get all these nice cool features then implementing a custom compiler for debugging can be much much harder than that
mhd 3y ago
I've got some bad experience with C++ for this. Yes, part of that was losing the flow, which is probably why way back then scripting languages were easier to sell than these days (where you can throw more money on the issue, with umpteen core dev machines). But the other part was the reaction amongst developers to this. Layers of abstractions introduced just to please the compiler gods. C++ was particular famous for this, all for the sake of partial compilation still working -- sometimes this had the benefits of decoupling, but often it was a few cake layers on top of that. So you end up with convenient languages, but have to forsake some of that convenience to actually be productive. But you still had to learn the convenient unused part and know the difference, even if you almost never could afford to use it (if it's just about runtime performance, you often don't need that. But you don't want to cause the projects compilation or test phase to double, just because that functional-combinatoric template metaprogramming approach is so much neater) Oh man, if only we would have Wirth-dows, not Windows ;)
- fooker 3y ago
  C++ compile is pretty decent nowadays, except for template heavy dependencies like boost which attempt to be header only for the most part.
jb1991 3y ago
I’ve been hearing about Jai for, what, maybe close to a decade already?! Is it actually gonna happen? I feel like it’s one of those languages that falls under the category of vaporware.
- duped 3y ago
  I don't think calling it Vaporware is accurate, since it's one person's project for their own other projects. There isn't (nor should there) be any expectation on general availability of it.
- stephc_int13 3y ago
  I've been following the development of this language and I am pretty sure it is not vaporware. I think they are making a PR mistake by not making it more open, but I would be surprised if it is never released.

bsaul 3y ago

Zig is slow as well ??

quic5 3y ago
The biggest bottleneck in Zig's case is LLVM. That's why they implement fast alternative backends for development. See: https://kristoff.it/blog/zig-new-relationship-llvm/ https://kristoff.it/blog/zig-new-relationship-llvm/
- bsaul 3y ago
  looks like the project's now abandonned : https://github.com/ziglang/zig/projects/2 https://github.com/ziglang/zig/projects/2
  - hsn915 3y ago
    This comment suggests otherwise: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/89#issuecomment-1221188076 https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/89#issuecomment-122118... Although I'm not sure the "self hosted compiler" is the same as "llvm free backend".
    - stefncb 3y ago
      It's not. The self-hosted compiler still uses llvm, and it's still slow because of it.
  - TUSF 3y ago
    "self-hosted compiler" in this case means moving all the non-LLVM code (which was previously in C++) to Zig itself.
- Patrickmi 3y ago
  One thing I hate about LLVM is that once you get into the ecosystem to get “another alternative” or “abandon LLVM” it’s like hell, you get all these nice cool features then implementing a custom compiler for debugging can be much much harder than that

mhd 3y ago

I've got some bad experience with C++ for this. Yes, part of that was losing the flow, which is probably why way back then scripting languages were easier to sell than these days (where you can throw more money on the issue, with umpteen core dev machines). But the other part was the reaction amongst developers to this. Layers of abstractions introduced just to please the compiler gods. C++ was particular famous for this, all for the sake of partial compilation still working -- sometimes this had the benefits of decoupling, but often it was a few cake layers on top of that. So you end up with convenient languages, but have to forsake some of that convenience to actually be productive. But you still had to learn the convenient unused part and know the difference, even if you almost never could afford to use it (if it's just about runtime performance, you often don't need that. But you don't want to cause the projects compilation or test phase to double, just because that functional-combinatoric template metaprogramming approach is so much neater) Oh man, if only we would have Wirth-dows, not Windows ;)

fooker 3y ago
C++ compile is pretty decent nowadays, except for template heavy dependencies like boost which attempt to be header only for the most part.

jb1991 3y ago

I’ve been hearing about Jai for, what, maybe close to a decade already?! Is it actually gonna happen? I feel like it’s one of those languages that falls under the category of vaporware.

duped 3y ago
I don't think calling it Vaporware is accurate, since it's one person's project for their own other projects. There isn't (nor should there) be any expectation on general availability of it.
stephc_int13 3y ago
I've been following the development of this language and I am pretty sure it is not vaporware. I think they are making a PR mistake by not making it more open, but I would be surprised if it is never released.