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Looks great but the fact that it uses zig which is pre 1.0 and describes itself “not for use in production” gives me pause. Realistically how much of a problem

by padjo 3y ago

Looks great but the fact that it uses zig which is pre 1.0 and describes itself “not for use in production” gives me pause. Realistically how much of a problem is this likely to be?

postalrat 3y ago
Calm down Gramps. People have moved on. Rust is yesterday's technology.
shawabawa3 3y ago
I guarantee zig is 100x more production ready than 99% of the 4 million nested dependencies included in the average js project
- petabytes 3y ago
  I tried to compile a hello world template for Zig a few months ago. Pulled it from GitHub, zig build and it gave an error. The problem? They recently redesigned a major part of the build system and deprecated old functions. No deprecated message, and no backwards compatibility. Just a plain old undefined function error. That's what I don't like about these modern languages. You have to be in the community and keep up with the latest releases in order to use the language. I just want something that's stable. I don't want to keep relearning everything.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  Node or Deno dependencies would be a fairer comparison.
- vntx 3y ago
  Wow, that many guarantees should persuade me to base my tech stack on Bun and Zig. Seriously, I think this question is worth asking. Why was Zig chosen as the language when it’s not even stable, and what implications does this have for the long term viability of the project (besides the fact that its _fast_)? Zig’s head guy isn’t even sure when Zig will hit v.1.0, and Bun’s head guy hasn’t really responded either AFAIK.
  - warent 3y ago
    it's possible that they chose Zig if this started as an unpaid passion project, and it simply sounded the most interesting to them. Demonstrably by this 1.0 bun release it seems safe to say it ended up being a fine decision, no?
    - afavour 3y ago
      > Demonstrably by this 1.0 bun release it seems safe to say it ended up being a fine decision, no? That’s just a decision they’ve made themselves. I honestly think it’s an interesting question: can software built on a <1.0 base legitimately call itself 1.0? What if there are big underlying issues discovered within Zig?
      - rockorager 3y ago
        I don't see why not. 1.0 would mean the API isn't changing. And they can certainly swap out the language and still keep the API the same.
      - pseg134 3y ago
        Well sure, it can legitimately call itself anything. You are wondering if Bun’s standards for 1.0 match up with the standards for 1.0 that you have in your head, but of course only you can answer that.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    Zig is fast, promising, compatible with existing C libraries, and relatively barebones. The language itself may not be ready for production, but the binaries built in the language work just fine. If Zig dies tomorrow, bun could probably continue using it as-is, perhaps after fixing the bugs they encounter. It's "the API and language spec isn't complete yet" unstable, not "we haven't implemented floating point operations yet" unstable. So far, only the allocalypse has caused major grief in terms of language changes, as far as I know.
    - nusaru 3y ago
dgb23 3y ago
> Realistically how much of a problem is this likely to be? It is a very young language with momentum and a foundation behind it. I'm not aware of any pre 1.0 stability guarantees. In fact it is generally recommended to use the nightly release (see: https://ziglang.org/learn/getting-started/ https://ziglang.org/learn/getting-started/) because they are moving quickly. Definitely seems to be in a early adopters and tinkerers phase.

by padjo 3y ago

Looks great but the fact that it uses zig which is pre 1.0 and describes itself “not for use in production” gives me pause. Realistically how much of a problem is this likely to be?

postalrat 3y ago

Calm down Gramps. People have moved on. Rust is yesterday's technology.

shawabawa3 3y ago

I guarantee zig is 100x more production ready than 99% of the 4 million nested dependencies included in the average js project

petabytes 3y ago
I tried to compile a hello world template for Zig a few months ago. Pulled it from GitHub, zig build and it gave an error. The problem? They recently redesigned a major part of the build system and deprecated old functions. No deprecated message, and no backwards compatibility. Just a plain old undefined function error. That's what I don't like about these modern languages. You have to be in the community and keep up with the latest releases in order to use the language. I just want something that's stable. I don't want to keep relearning everything.
nonethewiser 3y ago
Node or Deno dependencies would be a fairer comparison.
vntx 3y ago
Wow, that many guarantees should persuade me to base my tech stack on Bun and Zig. Seriously, I think this question is worth asking. Why was Zig chosen as the language when it’s not even stable, and what implications does this have for the long term viability of the project (besides the fact that its _fast_)? Zig’s head guy isn’t even sure when Zig will hit v.1.0, and Bun’s head guy hasn’t really responded either AFAIK.
- warent 3y ago
  it's possible that they chose Zig if this started as an unpaid passion project, and it simply sounded the most interesting to them. Demonstrably by this 1.0 bun release it seems safe to say it ended up being a fine decision, no?
  - afavour 3y ago
    > Demonstrably by this 1.0 bun release it seems safe to say it ended up being a fine decision, no? That’s just a decision they’ve made themselves. I honestly think it’s an interesting question: can software built on a <1.0 base legitimately call itself 1.0? What if there are big underlying issues discovered within Zig?
    - rockorager 3y ago
      I don't see why not. 1.0 would mean the API isn't changing. And they can certainly swap out the language and still keep the API the same.
    - pseg134 3y ago
      Well sure, it can legitimately call itself anything. You are wondering if Bun’s standards for 1.0 match up with the standards for 1.0 that you have in your head, but of course only you can answer that.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  Zig is fast, promising, compatible with existing C libraries, and relatively barebones. The language itself may not be ready for production, but the binaries built in the language work just fine. If Zig dies tomorrow, bun could probably continue using it as-is, perhaps after fixing the bugs they encounter. It's "the API and language spec isn't complete yet" unstable, not "we haven't implemented floating point operations yet" unstable. So far, only the allocalypse has caused major grief in terms of language changes, as far as I know.
  - nusaru 3y ago

dgb23 3y ago

> Realistically how much of a problem is this likely to be? It is a very young language with momentum and a foundation behind it. I'm not aware of any pre 1.0 stability guarantees. In fact it is generally recommended to use the nightly release (see: https://ziglang.org/learn/getting-started/ https://ziglang.org/learn/getting-started/) because they are moving quickly. Definitely seems to be in a early adopters and tinkerers phase.