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Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

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Re: Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

#141

Post by lerno »

kelnos wrote: post #83
lerno wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C3 has "path shortening", so for example given `open(...)` in std::io::file is usually used as `file::open(...)`. If we would to write this as `file.open(...)`. Consider now the case of mistyping `open`: `file.openn(...)`. Is this (A) mistyping the function open in module `std::io::file` or is it (B) the global/local `file` is missing from the current scope? Also, "io", "file", "random" etc are commonly used variable…

I feel like path shortening is the issue, and IMO it's an unnecessary feature. I don't think most programmers are bothered by the need to explicitly import what they use. I'd personally prefer to explicitly import what I use, and refer to it in whatever way the import statement would imply. In Rust where modules share a namespace with other identifiers, I just pick different variable names, or write my imports so the…

What works for Rust works for Rust. My intent is to make code feel similar to C namespacing. What works and what doesn’t is fairly contextual, depending other language semantics as well.

Re: Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

#142

Post by lerno »

baranul wrote: post #131
lerno wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that Wikipedia editors will aggressively remove Wiki entries about less known languages. There are already several wiki articles on Odin by various authors that have been removed over the years. Talking about GitHub numbers, we can look at VLang, which had an astronomical trajectory initially due to overpromising and selling a language that would solve long standing issues such as no manual memory manage…

Wikipedia and their processes are independent to any language. It means that if Odin or other languages were removed, they were likely judged as not meeting the standard or not popular enough. That the Odin language is so old (around 9 years), and still not on it, is indicative of it not being as popular as various people are hoping. The use of negative catch phrases and envious put downs by competitors of Vlang has…

Odin isn’t as well known as Zig, true. But what you seemed to argue was that this was a deliberate choice by the Odin community: to look for hype on Hacker News rather than doing the leg work of getting a Wikipedia article about the language.

This idea is what I criticize.

Not to mention that Wikipedia’s notability criteria is increasingly harder to live up to as tech news gets more and more decentralized.

It is not enough for notability that the Odin author is interviewed in various podcasts. It’s not enough for the language to be used in a leading visual effects tool and so on. These are not valid references for Wikipedia.

So how did Vlang achieve it? By commissioning books on the language(!). Once there was a book on V (nevermind no one bought it) it fulfilled the Wikipedia criteria. There are discussions about this on various V forums.

So let go of the idea that Wikipedia is proving anything.

Re: Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

#143

Post by lerno »

johnisgood wrote: post #139
lerno wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to use a single-header library as part of C3 libraries or your project. However, it must be noted that this will inhibit the ability to cross compile, as the compilation of the header is outsourced to the natively installed C compiler. For that reason it's not an option for the standard library, but can certainly be useful for programs and libraries. For faults, they are usually defined with `faultdef`…

Thank you! Is it possible to do something like: faultdef { FOO, // comment BAR, // another comment BAZ, // yadda // Maybe this would work, too (for docgen if available) QUX } or something like that? Does C3 have a way to generate documentation?

You could do

    faultdef
        FOO, // comment
        BAR, // comment
        QUX; // comment
There are third party tools to generate docs. You can also get some json output from the c3 compiler itself to base docs on

Re: Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

#144

Post by lerno »

owlstuffing wrote: post #119
lerno wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, that is indeed true. However, the plan is to have the language fixed at 1.0, only updating stdlib and tooling after that.

Well, if your language gains traction that plan may not succeed. For your sake, I hope that's the case :)

I know it’s hard.

Re: Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

#147

Post by djmips »

lerno wrote: post #145
djmips wrote: post #91

Does it have native fixed point types?

No, there is an incomplete proposal for it here though: https://github.com/c3lang/c3c/issues/1451 What would you like to use it for?

I find it useful in lower powered systems without floating point hardware. It may be a feature whose time has passed but it still seems like there's both a case for it and probably an elegant design waiting.

Imagine using it on a 6809 system for example. :)

Re: Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

#148

Post by tialaramex »

fuzztester wrote: post #132
tialaramex wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably all of these you mentioned aren't finished. C3 is 0.7, Jai is an "internal beta", Odin is working through a series of "dev" builds, Zig is 0.14, and Hare 0.24.2 This is maybe more striking when comparing against C which was already very old and battle tested in 1989 when it was standardized. If you pick any of these languages you're accepting an unknowable amount of churn. It better be worth it.

>This is maybe more striking when comparing against C which was already very old and battle tested in 1989 when it was standardized. If you pick any of these languages you're accepting an unknowable amount of churn. C has plenty of issues too, even though it is very old, battle tested and standardized. (How about all the UB in C, for example?) That is why people are looking for C alternatives in the first place. >It…

Sure, as someone who got paid to write C for many years I can't disagree it has issues - after all I no longer write C. I chose to write Rust instead.

The notable commonality of these "C alternatives" is that they are still moving targets and yet that wasn't mentioned.

Re: Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

#149

Post by baranul »

lerno wrote: post #142
baranul wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia and their processes are independent to any language. It means that if Odin or other languages were removed, they were likely judged as not meeting the standard or not popular enough. That the Odin language is so old (around 9 years), and still not on it, is indicative of it not being as popular as various people are hoping. The use of negative catch phrases and envious put downs by competitors of Vlang has…

Odin isn’t as well known as Zig, true. But what you seemed to argue was that this was a deliberate choice by the Odin community: to look for hype on Hacker News rather than doing the leg work of getting a Wikipedia article about the language. This idea is what I criticize. Not to mention that Wikipedia’s notability criteria is increasingly harder to live up to as tech news gets more and more decentralized. It is not…

First, for clarification, V developers can not control who writes books on the language. To say otherwise, looks to be about projection, as to what competitors have done or plan to do.

The first book written about V (5 years ago), looks to have been a total surprise to the community and its creator, because it was written in Japanese[1]. The 2nd book written about V has clearly sold well and received very good reviews[2]. It's author had no connection with V development and there are interviews about him. A 3rd book[3], which was for academic circles, is not primarily about V. It, however, uses the programming language for random number generation and explanations on the subject.

The point I'm getting at, is marketing one's self on HN or podcasts as a viable alternative versus being an actual viable alternative used by the general public. It's one thing to act like or say your popular, it's another thing to be popular. There is a qualitative difference, that is even picked up on by Wikipedia, which is arguably why Odin or C3 don't have a page or the numbers on GitHub.

Despite any misdirected anger or envy, that problem has nothing to do with other languages like V or even Zig. It's up to fans and interested third parties of that language to show and report widespread usage.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BKJDRFR (Book about V (Vlang) in 2020 and in Japanese)

[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FKK3JL7 (Book about V (Vlang) in 2021, highly rated, and sold well)

[3] https://doi.org/10.52305%2FCVCN5241 (Book is part of an academic series, 2023, and uses V (Vlang))

Re: Show HN: The C3 programming language (C alternative language)

#150

Post by mort96 »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #135
mort96 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely Zig differentiates between, say, a function in a module, and a member on an object? Or are "modules" literally just instances of classes or something?

all structs are namespaces (there no classes). namespaces may contain declarations (consts and functions) or fields ("fields" are slightly different for unions or certain builtins like arrays and slices) unions and enums also create namespaces. any @import creates a namespace that is a struct. If a function's first argument is the type of the function's namespace or a pointer to the type of the namespace, you may (an…

And you're saying that a modules are instances of structs? Meaning functions in modules are non-static methods?
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