Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#1

Post by marosgrego » Sat, May 25, 2024, 9:58 PM UTC

Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header
github.com

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#2

Post by 3dworldrunner » Tue, May 28, 2024, 6:46 AM UTC

Carcinization.

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#3

Post by feb » Tue, May 28, 2024, 7:17 AM UTC

Nice system built with only a couple of C99 macros. That small header also achieves matching for specific C types over the "sum types".

In the context of C99, isn't tagged union the more usual name instead of sum type?

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#4

Post by xurukefi » Tue, May 28, 2024, 11:55 AM UTC

It's a nice idea, but I don't think it adds enough clarity to the code to justify the messy compiler warnings and errors that this kind of preprocessor abuse will eventually cause.

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#5

Post by natsucks » Tue, May 28, 2024, 1:10 PM UTC

Question: is C gaining in popularity? If so, why exactly? Are their good reasons to be using C in product development rather than more modern languages?

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#6

Post by Joker_vD » Tue, May 28, 2024, 1:14 PM UTC

3dworldrunner wrote: post #2

Carcinization.

Variant records have existed long before (Algol 68 had them!) that that one crab-related language was a thing.

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#7

Post by Q6T46nT668w6i3m » Tue, May 28, 2024, 1:37 PM UTC

natsucks wrote: post #5

Question: is C gaining in popularity? If so, why exactly? Are their good reasons to be using C in product development rather than more modern languages?

I don’t know anything about trends but I still write some C because it’s widely supported across a variety of platforms.

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#8

Post by eknkc » Tue, May 28, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

natsucks wrote: post #5

Question: is C gaining in popularity? If so, why exactly? Are their good reasons to be using C in product development rather than more modern languages?

I’ve started using zig for some stuff recently and it can include c effortlessly. Also with rust it is pretty easy to interact with c (well, you need unsafe and I guess for this particular case, bindgen would not be able to provide bindings).

I would not reach to c libraries on many other platforms but recently I started using more c, just not from c..

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#9

Post by frutiger » Tue, May 28, 2024, 1:43 PM UTC

Joker_vD wrote: post #6

3dworldrunner wrote: post #2

Carcinization.

Variant records have existed long before (Algol 68 had them!) that that one crab-related language was a thing.

And sum types from ML circa 1972 (over fifty years ago). Indeed rust is basically an ML with affine types.

Re: Show HN: Sum (algebraic) types for C in one 100 line header

#10

Post by bluetomcat » Tue, May 28, 2024, 1:47 PM UTC

natsucks wrote: post #5

Question: is C gaining in popularity? If so, why exactly? Are their good reasons to be using C in product development rather than more modern languages?

It looks like some cool new kids are rediscovering it, after more than a decade of pythonisation and javascriptisation of programming. You can have things that behave like values and actually reside on the stack, you can ask the operating system for more memory and you have static fixed-size memory which is allocated when the program is run. Good old procedures without the distractions of prototypal inheritance, variable hoisting, dynamic typing, coroutines, list comprehensions and lambda callbacks.

It's probably a more relevant tool for a larger class of problems than many people imagine.