Zig was not ready or nearly as popular back in 2019 when the compiler was started. Not to mention, Richard has a background mostly doing higher level programmi

Zig was not ready or nearly as popular back in 2019 when the compiler was started. Not to mention, Richard has a background mostly doing higher level programming. So jumping all the way to something like C or Zig would have been a very big step. Sometimes you need a stepping stone to learn and figure out what you really want.