Memory unsafety (by default without opt-in) is being treated like a feature in these newer languages.
I like Odin
21–30 of 211 posts
Re: I like Odin
#22> As someone who is interested in systems programming, and has experience working with Go I wonder how Go got it's reputation as a systems language. Imo, it occupies the same abstraction level as Java or C#.
AFAIK Go was and is primarily used to write back-end server software and this is commonly called "systems programming" (as opposed to application programming) too. It is kinda confusing that the term is used for that and for low-level embedded/firmware/kernel programming, despite both areas having little in common with each other.
> and this is commonly called "systems programming"
Is it, though? My impression it only started with Go calling it that way
Re: I like Odin
#23Memory unsafety (by default without opt-in) is being treated like a feature in these newer languages.
What other language takes this stance? (other than jai, which is not released)
Re: I like Odin
#24Nice, it also supports distinct types (Similar to Nim): https://odin-lang.org/docs/overview/#distinct-type
Re: I like Odin
#25I think the reason why he is liking Odin, as a person who used Go, is because it's arguably an offshoot language of Go. Odin ( https://odin-lang.org/docs/overview/ ) has borrowed a lot from Go, which can be easily detected in various syntax and concepts. Another language which is in both the C and Go alternative language category, is Vlang ( https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/doc/docs.md ). For anybody that has u…
In terms of actual features though (ignoring trivial syntax), Odin resembles more of Jai. In fact, when I first found about it a few years earlier I though it was an open source clone of Jai. Today many features have diverged since then, and Odin is ahead by many aspects (mainly that the compiler is open source, but also that it’s already being used in production via EmberGen). I still really want the full metaprogra…
> which is lacking in Odin currently
gingerBill (the creator/designer of Odin) has been quite clear that Odin is done (in terms of language features) and that he does not intend to ever include support for "macros" or other advanced metaprogramming features.
Re: I like Odin
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK Go was and is primarily used to write back-end server software and this is commonly called "systems programming" (as opposed to application programming) too. It is kinda confusing that the term is used for that and for low-level embedded/firmware/kernel programming, despite both areas having little in common with each other.
> and this is commonly called "systems programming" Is it, though? My impression it only started with Go calling it that way
System programming languages also used to refer to non-scripting languages. See this paper by John Ousterhout (creator of Tcl) written in 1997: https://users.ece.utexas.edu/~adnan/top/ousterhout-scripting...
Re: I like Odin
#27> As someone who is interested in systems programming, and has experience working with Go I wonder how Go got it's reputation as a systems language. Imo, it occupies the same abstraction level as Java or C#.
When Go was first announced ~2009, Rob Pike explicitly framed it as a systems language https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKnDgT73v8s I would not say it's the same as Java or C#. The crucial difference is that it compiles to a native executable binary file, not something that needs a virtual machine.
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Re: I like Odin
#28Odin sounds like a nice improvement over C, however this caught my attention:
> If your “dread” of C comes from fear of memory management, then Odin is probably not for you, and dare I say, maybe systems programming is not for you.
I have to say that my dread of C definitely comes manual memory management. The awkward syntax and compilation model I can tolerate. But having your program expose critical security vulnerabilities because you forgot a weird edge case while managing a pointer is really worrying. For simple programs is not that complicated, but for complex multi threaded ones it becomes really hard. And the fact that event the most expert programmers make these mistakes, leaves me not much hope.
So perhaps systems programming is not for me? But what exactly is systems programming? Is it developing OS kernels, writing drivers and embedded microcontroller systems? Or is it more.
I'm not very interested in writing any of those. But I do want to write programs that are fast and run as fast as C or C++, and I want a language which allows good control of resources and has minimal overhead. Sometimes these programs are multi-threaded and quite complex, so I want memory and type safety and I want tools to crate abstractions to tame complexity a little bit. Is all this out of the systems programming definition?
Re: I like Odin
#29It is not hard to design a language which is a "better C than C" because C has obvious warts, the article mentions a few. But the warts just aren't big enough to justify switching to a different language. That's why no "better C than C" has ever become really popular.
The solution is a language that seamlessly interoperates with C, like Zig does (no FFI, high impedance match with C, cross-compiles C, exports to C ABI, transpiles C, compiles to C).
Re: I like Odin
#30I’d much rather use a safe language such as Rust that has the same speed without all the worries.
Probably a harder learning curve than Odin or Go but more likely to work and also run faster (than Go at least). It also has zero cost functional programming paradigms.