Zig and the design choices within

I think the post gives an answer to this with "due to Zig's fairly minimalistic nature; it lacks a lot of features that one would otherwise use to solve problems. Of course, this is the appeal for many, but still". I have a lot of C/C++ experience, and they're what I reach for, but I often want C to be a little more like C++, and I often want both to have slightly better memory management, and I've never liked the different syntax for the main language, templates, and pre compiler macros. I also agree with Zig's dogmatic stance on no hidden control flow; I have been bitten by "magic" too many times.

I have admired many parts of Zig and its philosophy but I've never seen it as a language that I want to use. What I've noticed is that Zig users care most about explicitness, simplicity, and minimal indirection. This leads to a lot of syntax that is cumbersome to read (albeit unambiguous) like casting and a lack of "convenience" features. I can't help but think that maybe they're right and that this philosophy probably leads to better software because nothing is "hidden". But, I also think that there's a level of abstraction/indirection that makes code clearer and less error-prone. It's a tricky balance to achieve, and past languages have succeeded and failed at it to different degrees. Either way, I echo the OP's sentiment: if Zig is your jam, great, go make some awesome stuff with it. It's just not my go-to today.

> Zig's comptime is a very large and all-encompassing feature that ultimately brings very little to the table that smaller features cannot.

> I am personally a proponent of a good macro system.

Comptime is much more constraint than any macro system: no code generation (including AST rewrite), no arbitrary tokens. Thus it's much harder to "go overboard" with Zig's comptime. This constraints of cource have their drawbacks, but code generation is still a thing.

> Much of Zig seems to me like "wishful thinking"; if every programmer was 150% smarter and more capable, perhaps it would work.

Nice way to put it! But I oppositely believe the world needs more tech that treats professionals as experts, not kids.

Some people like Zig because it makes it easier to learn how to program the machine sitting in front of them.

It's better at that than Rust because it's less abstracted, and it's better at that than C because you don't have to worry all the toolchain nonsense / weird conventions / weak type system of the C ecosystem.

As a small example wrt Rust: resetting an arraylist/vector while reusing its memory is a weirdly complicated trick https://lobste.rs/s/emvkea/why_we_didn_t_rewrite_our_feed_ha...

I think I don't need to provide references for C.

It's a new pathway to mastery that really works well for some people. That in itself is much more valuable than any new specific feature the language has to offer, although the ability of the toolchain to cross-compile reliably not only Zig but also C and C++ code does play into that.

And, while not yet 100% there, instant incremental rebuilds also help to achieve faster feedback loops.

People like Zig because it's a tool that helps them become better programmers, faster.

Interest on various topics comes in waves on HN. This week it's Zig, next week it's Scheme, the week after is Erlang, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary.