3 ms·

Seems like Nim can be useful too, plus it compiles to C. https://gist.github.com/unclechu/eb37cc81e80afbbb5e74990b62ea21f6 https://gist.github.com/unclechu/eb3

• brabel 2y ago
  In Nim, ADTs are painful still (as your example clearly shows), but they are working on adding proper ADTs to the language (I can't find where I read that, but I am sure I did!).
  • j-james 2y ago
    https://github.com/nim-lang/RFCs/issues/548 https://github.com/nim-lang/RFCs/issues/548
• samatman 2y ago
  I've been a Nim respecter for many years, it's slept on in general as a language. The difference here is that Nim compiles to C and you can turn the garbage collector off: Zig compiles C and there's no garbage collector. That means the entire standard library is available when generating object code. It's also trivial to opt-in to the C ABI on a fine-grained basis, by defining a function or struct with the extern keyword. I believe this is still fairly current about the difficulties of building Nim dylibs for C programs: https://peterme.net/dynamic-libraries-in-nim.html https://peterme.net/dynamic-libraries-in-nim.html I expect Nim will stabilize about where D has: it will have a dialect of the language which, with relatively painless accommodations, is able to produce object code which speaks C ABI. Zig is different. The language is relentlessly focused on providing a better alternative to C while occupying the same niche, and a lot of design time has been spent on making it practical to take an existing C program and start writing the new parts of it in Zig. It's a good language, Nim, and getting better. I'd recommend it for someone who is considering Go, for example.
  • j-james 2y ago
    I think this is all true. Though with regard to your earlier example, it should be noted that Nim, too, has an extraordinarily powerful compile-time programming system: but it takes the form of typed macros and generics (as opposed to Zig's dislike for such abstractions).
  • keybored 2y ago
    Let's say further that you already know Zig exists, and aren't going to use it for reasons that anyone writing a C/Rust/D/C++ program already knows. At least give Nim a try.
    • samatman 2y ago
      The difference here is that there aren't C programmers who don't know about Rust, and since they're writing C, they have reasons they aren't using it. The same is not true of Zig. Some of the reasons not to be using Rust may be applicable (no specification comes to mind), others may not be. I do agree that, on an even playing field, Nim should be considered when any of Rust, D, C++, or Go, are on the table. This is less true of C, and therefore, Zig. There's a difference between something being possible, and something being easy and pleasant. There are also people using C, who really should be using some other language. Which is, in that case, probably not Zig. When you understand that C is the rational choice for some sorts of programming, you'll understand why Zig is a contender, in a way that the other languages we're discussing are not.
      • keybored 2y ago
        Maybe I’ll understand one day.