6 ms·

And this is exactly why you do not use shiny new languages for your projects. Hope tigerbeetle won't have too much trouble with this

by zwnow 1y ago

hmry 1y ago
Zig is the only language I've used where every library specifies the one (and only) compiler version it works on in their GitHub readme.
- kunley 1y ago
  Experienced quite the contrary, some time ago at least.. Which is a pity because really liked the language, but the discovering what works with what, oh dear
- flohofwoe 1y ago
  How many pre-release languages are you typically using though?
Hamuko 1y ago
Are people deploying production code in a language that is still in its 0.x version?
- zwnow 1y ago
  I dont but there are companies who trust the language (which is a good thing but also short sighted)
- cenamus 1y ago
  I mean, what's the difference to the python 2/3 debacle? People were writing/extending in python 2 long after it was declared obsolete
  - Hamuko 1y ago
    Not having breaking changes every N months?
    - flohofwoe 1y ago
      Each new minor Python 3.x version has plenty of deprecations followed by removals in the stdlib though.
      - Hamuko 1y ago
        I don't think even those are particularly short periods. TestCase.assertEquals() was deprecated in Python 3.2 (February 2011) and removed in Python 3.12 (October 2023). 12 ⅔ years to get rid of a silly alias because it's a breaking change (of a single character).
  - mirashii 1y ago
    It's not about sticking around on an old version, it's about ever being able to catch up, and what the rest of the ecosystem is going to do. Python did this major version bump that broke a lot of the ecosystem, and it went so poorly that they've effectively promised never to do it again and completely excised any thought of ever having a major version bump again, and other languages and communities now point to it regularly as a debacle to be avoided. When you break things regularly, you're forcing a choice on every individual package in the ecosystem: move forward, and leave the old users behind, or stay behind, and risk that the rest of the ecosystem moves forward without you. Now you've got a whole ecosystem in a prisoner's dilemma. For an individual, maybe you can make a choice and dig in and make your way along without too much trouble. But the ecosystem as a whole can't, the ecosystem fractures, and if it doesn't converge on the latest version, it slowly withers and dies.
  - skybrian 1y ago
    Static types help to find what needs to be fixed. Something like 'go fix' would be useful for fixing them. Apparently something like that is being considered for zig.
- ozgrakkurt 1y ago
  A lot of people were using tokio in prod when it was 0.1 and didn’t get upset afaik. Rust didn’t even have async await at that time
  - bogdan 1y ago
    Some prod are more prod than the others.
  - Ygg2 1y ago
    > A lot of people were using tokio in prod when it was 0.1 and didn’t get upset afaik. Citation needed. A lot of people wanted Rust to stabilize. Hence why they huried to Rust 1.0.
eviks 1y ago
The risk isn't unique to shiny new languages
ozgrakkurt 1y ago
TigerBeetle uses io_uring afaik so they don’t use these io interfaces at all. Also found that these interfaces only cause problems for performance and flexibility in rust so didn’t even look at them in zig.
jorangreef 1y ago
This is exactly why we chose Zig. Andrew’s design decisions in the language have always been impeccable. I’ve never seen him put a foot wrong and would have made the same change myself. This is also not new to us, Andrew spoke about this at Systems Distributed ‘25. Also, TigerBeetle has and owns its own IO stack in any event, and we’ve always been careful to use stable language features. But regardless, it’s in our nature to “do the right thing”, even if that means a bit of change. We call this “Edge” and explicitly hire for people who have the same characteristic, the craftspeople who know how to spot great technical quality, regardless of how young (or old!) a project may be. Finally, I’ve been in Zig since 2018. I wouldn’t exactly call it “shiny new”. Zig already has the highest quality toolchain and std lib of anything I would use.
- zwnow 1y ago
  Good to know, also thanks for the detailed reply! Glad you are fully aware of these nuances, but it also doesn't surprise me considering your amazing presentation of Tigerbeetle! Much success in the future.
  - jorangreef 1y ago
    Thanks zwnow, appreciate your kind words, and my pleasure! I think you'll enjoy Andrew's talk on this too when it comes out in the next few weeks. The velocity of Zig has been valuable for us. Being able to put things like io_uring or @prefetch in the std lib or language, and having them merged quickly. Zig has been so solid, even with all the fuzzing we do. It's really held up, and upgrades across versions have not been much work, only a pleasure.
- tialaramex 1y ago
  > Andrew’s design decisions in the language have always been impeccable. I’ve never seen him put a foot wrong and would have made the same change myself. Interesting, who designed the old Zig IO stack which alas Andrew needed to replace?
  - eddythompson80 1y ago

And this is exactly why you do not use shiny new languages for your projects. Hope tigerbeetle won't have too much trouble with this

by zwnow 1y ago

And this is exactly why you do not use shiny new languages for your projects. Hope tigerbeetle won't have too much trouble with this

hmry 1y ago

Zig is the only language I've used where every library specifies the one (and only) compiler version it works on in their GitHub readme.

kunley 1y ago
Experienced quite the contrary, some time ago at least.. Which is a pity because really liked the language, but the discovering what works with what, oh dear
flohofwoe 1y ago
How many pre-release languages are you typically using though?

Hamuko 1y ago

Are people deploying production code in a language that is still in its 0.x version?

zwnow 1y ago
I dont but there are companies who trust the language (which is a good thing but also short sighted)
cenamus 1y ago
I mean, what's the difference to the python 2/3 debacle? People were writing/extending in python 2 long after it was declared obsolete
- Hamuko 1y ago
  Not having breaking changes every N months?
  - flohofwoe 1y ago
    Each new minor Python 3.x version has plenty of deprecations followed by removals in the stdlib though.
    - Hamuko 1y ago
      I don't think even those are particularly short periods. TestCase.assertEquals() was deprecated in Python 3.2 (February 2011) and removed in Python 3.12 (October 2023). 12 ⅔ years to get rid of a silly alias because it's a breaking change (of a single character).
- mirashii 1y ago
  It's not about sticking around on an old version, it's about ever being able to catch up, and what the rest of the ecosystem is going to do. Python did this major version bump that broke a lot of the ecosystem, and it went so poorly that they've effectively promised never to do it again and completely excised any thought of ever having a major version bump again, and other languages and communities now point to it regularly as a debacle to be avoided. When you break things regularly, you're forcing a choice on every individual package in the ecosystem: move forward, and leave the old users behind, or stay behind, and risk that the rest of the ecosystem moves forward without you. Now you've got a whole ecosystem in a prisoner's dilemma. For an individual, maybe you can make a choice and dig in and make your way along without too much trouble. But the ecosystem as a whole can't, the ecosystem fractures, and if it doesn't converge on the latest version, it slowly withers and dies.
- skybrian 1y ago
  Static types help to find what needs to be fixed. Something like 'go fix' would be useful for fixing them. Apparently something like that is being considered for zig.
ozgrakkurt 1y ago
A lot of people were using tokio in prod when it was 0.1 and didn’t get upset afaik. Rust didn’t even have async await at that time
- bogdan 1y ago
  Some prod are more prod than the others.
- Ygg2 1y ago
  > A lot of people were using tokio in prod when it was 0.1 and didn’t get upset afaik. Citation needed. A lot of people wanted Rust to stabilize. Hence why they huried to Rust 1.0.

eviks 1y ago

The risk isn't unique to shiny new languages

ozgrakkurt 1y ago

TigerBeetle uses io_uring afaik so they don’t use these io interfaces at all. Also found that these interfaces only cause problems for performance and flexibility in rust so didn’t even look at them in zig.

jorangreef 1y ago

This is exactly why we chose Zig. Andrew’s design decisions in the language have always been impeccable. I’ve never seen him put a foot wrong and would have made the same change myself. This is also not new to us, Andrew spoke about this at Systems Distributed ‘25. Also, TigerBeetle has and owns its own IO stack in any event, and we’ve always been careful to use stable language features. But regardless, it’s in our nature to “do the right thing”, even if that means a bit of change. We call this “Edge” and explicitly hire for people who have the same characteristic, the craftspeople who know how to spot great technical quality, regardless of how young (or old!) a project may be. Finally, I’ve been in Zig since 2018. I wouldn’t exactly call it “shiny new”. Zig already has the highest quality toolchain and std lib of anything I would use.

zwnow 1y ago
Good to know, also thanks for the detailed reply! Glad you are fully aware of these nuances, but it also doesn't surprise me considering your amazing presentation of Tigerbeetle! Much success in the future.
- jorangreef 1y ago
  Thanks zwnow, appreciate your kind words, and my pleasure! I think you'll enjoy Andrew's talk on this too when it comes out in the next few weeks. The velocity of Zig has been valuable for us. Being able to put things like io_uring or @prefetch in the std lib or language, and having them merged quickly. Zig has been so solid, even with all the fuzzing we do. It's really held up, and upgrades across versions have not been much work, only a pleasure.
tialaramex 1y ago
> Andrew’s design decisions in the language have always been impeccable. I’ve never seen him put a foot wrong and would have made the same change myself. Interesting, who designed the old Zig IO stack which alas Andrew needed to replace?
- eddythompson80 1y ago