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I'm reminded of a recent interview with Chris Latner about the success of Swift - he credits the success to the fact that you could start with a large objective

I'm reminded of a recent interview with Chris Latner about the success of Swift - he credits the success to the fact that you could start with a large objective C project and begin writing Swift without rewriting anything. Part of Rust's success is off the back of a similar compatibility with C/C++. It is difficult for me to imagine Zig succeeding without a similar capability - which is to say I hope they do not follow through on this milestone.

Ashymad 3y ago
But rust absolutely does not have any C/C++ compatibilty besides arguably very good FFI. And that's where zig shines. They have a c/c++ compiler built into the zig compiler via zig cc, that's even easier to use than clang or GCC due to having the benefits of a buildscript and baked in libcs for different architectures, making crosscompilation a breeze. In zig you _can_ actually start with a c codebase and rewrite it file by file in zig and you _can_ include c headers in your zig files verbatim. Both of these are not possible in rust. This milestone is only gonna remove the c++ (and objective c/c++) compiler for now from zig cc. So while you could argue this will ostracize people rewriting their c++ codebases in zig, I don't imagine there's actually many people like that. EDIT: I just looked at the discussion and there's actually a lot of people that use the c++ capapbilities.
- colinsane 3y ago
  > In zig you _can_ actually start with a c codebase and rewrite it file by file in zig and you _can_ include c headers in your zig files verbatim. Both of these are not possible in rust. well, you can: i have done this, with Rust. but yes, it’s more the type of thing that well-resourced companies do rather than solo devs, because even with Bindgen and the like Rust really wants the atomic codegen unit to be the “library”, not C’s notion of a “compilation unit”. still, C FFI compatibility is exactly why porting from C to rust incrementally is feasible while C to, say Java, is probably a bigger leap.
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    You still need a separate compiler toolchain next to Rust in order to compile the C, C++ and ObjC dependencies which is a massive build system headache (especially across UNIX-oids and Windows). In Zig that all "just works" with the standard Zig install.
    - duped 3y ago
      Show me a C/C++ project that doesn't need a build system.
      - flohofwoe 3y ago
        My stuff for instance: https://github.com/floooh/sokol https://github.com/floooh/sokol ...inspired by: https://github.com/nothings/stb https://github.com/nothings/stb (here's how the sokol headers are integrated into a Zig project, note that there is only a build.zig which builds everything: https://github.com/floooh/kc85.zig https://github.com/floooh/kc85.zig) But it's not so much about build systems, but requiring a separate compiler toolchain to build any C++ or ObjC dependencies (Rust needs this, Zig currently does not - unless that controversial proposal is implemented). (also even complex C++ libraries can be wrapped in a build.zig, so you don't require a separate build system like cmake for the C++ dependencies)
        duped 3y ago
        I still don't see why this is a problem. Single-header dependencies are cute but blow up compile times, and most of the world needs CMake/Meson/Autotools anyways so there's not an added cost to using it for your own projects. Similarly I don't really understand why you want one toolchain for a multi-language project. It's not that useful or convenient since it's going to need to be orchestrated with a buildsystem somehow. Like with Rust, you probably only have a build.rs file. It invokes a separate (possibly multiple) toolchains. Or with CMake. A simple project has a single CMakeLists.txt that can invoke any number of toolchains. I don't see why zig can't do that with a build.zig file, or why it matters.
- higherhalf 3y ago
  > But rust absolutely does not have any C/C++ compatibilty besides [..] > In zig you _can_ actually start with a c codebase and rewrite it file by file in zig and you _can_ include c headers in your zig files verbatim. Both of these are not possible in rust. You can. Either via FFI and bindgen-ing headers, or by using c2rust. The latter is not just a toy ambitious project, but actually a very impressive piece of engineering and does produce a result where you can transpile a project or file and start rewriting file-by-file or function-by-function.
  - the_duke 3y ago
    c2rust is definitely cool, but it also supports transpiling to a single architecture, which often misses a lot of architecture dependent code and specialisations in real world c code. Especially because it has to do macro expansion and you only get the expanded code. It also doesn't supportal a good amount of more complicated c features. It's a help for sure, but the few times I tried I ended up just doing the rewrite by hand instead to actually cover all the cases.
flohofwoe 3y ago
Can Swift really be called a success when it's only being used in the very narrow niche (the Apple software ecosystem - and only because it's essentially dicated by the platform owner)?
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Yes, that is how languages become a success on the market, either being pushed by the platform owner no matter what, or by having a framework written in them that everyone feels like using. Everything else are aspiring extras in the cinema of programing languages, waiting on the sidelines for that major role that will come someday, it really will, one just has to believe enough.
  - throwawaymaths 3y ago
    Counterexample: python
    - Aerbil313 3y ago
      Yeah, python filled an essential gap of a easy, high level language.
  - mike_hearn 3y ago
    Counter-example: Kotlin.
    - doctor_eval 3y ago
      How is that a counter example? Doesn’t Kotlin fulfil a similar role for Android?
      - mike_hearn 3y ago
        Kotlin wasn't created by Google and wasn't pushed by them. It's more like they accepted it because the Android developer base was adopting it organically en-masse anyway. That's also the case for many other places where Java is used.

Ashymad 3y ago

But rust absolutely does not have any C/C++ compatibilty besides arguably very good FFI. And that's where zig shines. They have a c/c++ compiler built into the zig compiler via zig cc, that's even easier to use than clang or GCC due to having the benefits of a buildscript and baked in libcs for different architectures, making crosscompilation a breeze. In zig you _can_ actually start with a c codebase and rewrite it file by file in zig and you _can_ include c headers in your zig files verbatim. Both of these are not possible in rust. This milestone is only gonna remove the c++ (and objective c/c++) compiler for now from zig cc. So while you could argue this will ostracize people rewriting their c++ codebases in zig, I don't imagine there's actually many people like that. EDIT: I just looked at the discussion and there's actually a lot of people that use the c++ capapbilities.

colinsane 3y ago
> In zig you _can_ actually start with a c codebase and rewrite it file by file in zig and you _can_ include c headers in your zig files verbatim. Both of these are not possible in rust. well, you can: i have done this, with Rust. but yes, it’s more the type of thing that well-resourced companies do rather than solo devs, because even with Bindgen and the like Rust really wants the atomic codegen unit to be the “library”, not C’s notion of a “compilation unit”. still, C FFI compatibility is exactly why porting from C to rust incrementally is feasible while C to, say Java, is probably a bigger leap.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  You still need a separate compiler toolchain next to Rust in order to compile the C, C++ and ObjC dependencies which is a massive build system headache (especially across UNIX-oids and Windows). In Zig that all "just works" with the standard Zig install.
  - duped 3y ago
    Show me a C/C++ project that doesn't need a build system.
    - flohofwoe 3y ago
      My stuff for instance: https://github.com/floooh/sokol https://github.com/floooh/sokol ...inspired by: https://github.com/nothings/stb https://github.com/nothings/stb (here's how the sokol headers are integrated into a Zig project, note that there is only a build.zig which builds everything: https://github.com/floooh/kc85.zig https://github.com/floooh/kc85.zig) But it's not so much about build systems, but requiring a separate compiler toolchain to build any C++ or ObjC dependencies (Rust needs this, Zig currently does not - unless that controversial proposal is implemented). (also even complex C++ libraries can be wrapped in a build.zig, so you don't require a separate build system like cmake for the C++ dependencies)
      - duped 3y ago
        I still don't see why this is a problem. Single-header dependencies are cute but blow up compile times, and most of the world needs CMake/Meson/Autotools anyways so there's not an added cost to using it for your own projects. Similarly I don't really understand why you want one toolchain for a multi-language project. It's not that useful or convenient since it's going to need to be orchestrated with a buildsystem somehow. Like with Rust, you probably only have a build.rs file. It invokes a separate (possibly multiple) toolchains. Or with CMake. A simple project has a single CMakeLists.txt that can invoke any number of toolchains. I don't see why zig can't do that with a build.zig file, or why it matters.
higherhalf 3y ago
> But rust absolutely does not have any C/C++ compatibilty besides [..] > In zig you _can_ actually start with a c codebase and rewrite it file by file in zig and you _can_ include c headers in your zig files verbatim. Both of these are not possible in rust. You can. Either via FFI and bindgen-ing headers, or by using c2rust. The latter is not just a toy ambitious project, but actually a very impressive piece of engineering and does produce a result where you can transpile a project or file and start rewriting file-by-file or function-by-function.
- the_duke 3y ago
  c2rust is definitely cool, but it also supports transpiling to a single architecture, which often misses a lot of architecture dependent code and specialisations in real world c code. Especially because it has to do macro expansion and you only get the expanded code. It also doesn't supportal a good amount of more complicated c features. It's a help for sure, but the few times I tried I ended up just doing the rewrite by hand instead to actually cover all the cases.

flohofwoe 3y ago

Can Swift really be called a success when it's only being used in the very narrow niche (the Apple software ecosystem - and only because it's essentially dicated by the platform owner)?

pjmlp 3y ago
Yes, that is how languages become a success on the market, either being pushed by the platform owner no matter what, or by having a framework written in them that everyone feels like using. Everything else are aspiring extras in the cinema of programing languages, waiting on the sidelines for that major role that will come someday, it really will, one just has to believe enough.
- throwawaymaths 3y ago
  Counterexample: python
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    Yeah, python filled an essential gap of a easy, high level language.
- mike_hearn 3y ago
  Counter-example: Kotlin.
  - doctor_eval 3y ago
    How is that a counter example? Doesn’t Kotlin fulfil a similar role for Android?
    - mike_hearn 3y ago
      Kotlin wasn't created by Google and wasn't pushed by them. It's more like they accepted it because the Android developer base was adopting it organically en-masse anyway. That's also the case for many other places where Java is used.