Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#1

Post by kristoff_it » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog
ziglang.org

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#2

Post by teabee89 » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

This is the promise that blew my mind the first time I heard about Zig years ago. So happy to see this become reality!

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#3

Post by bcardarella » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

I wonder how much this work being pushed forward right now is a response to the Bun drama.

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#4

Post by kristoff_it » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

bcardarella wrote: post #3

I wonder how much this work being pushed forward right now is a response to the Bun drama.

None of it, we've been working on this stuff for a long time already, scroll the devlog backwards, you will find plenty of entries on that topic.

It's the opposite: people have become more receptive to communication about this work now that there's "drama" attached to it.

This post I co-authored with Andrew is from 2020. In it we announce the idea of getting rid of LLVM from the debug build pipeline and since then work has been steadily going forward, it's just not trivial to bootstrap a full compiler pipeline for all major targets, but we're finally getting there.

https://kristoff.it/blog/zig-new-relationship-llvm/

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#5

Post by bpavuk » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

I am so used to thinking that Zig, Rust, and the likes are only viable in niches where C is viable, but no. not anymore at least - once this linker and incremental compilation on other targets land, Zig will become THE C replacement and that will let me iterate at the speed of JS or Python with performance of C or Rust. even Andrew's initial dream - to create a DAW with uncompromising UX - will become much easier to create. once someone creates a Zig-native immediate-mode or reactive UI framework, that is.

I am still a little salty about `@cImport` removal, though! without it, I can't confidently call it "Kotlin of C" anymore.

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#6

Post by mi_lk » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

bcardarella wrote: post #3

I wonder how much this work being pushed forward right now is a response to the Bun drama.

Some people really can’t operate without stirring unnecessary drama.

What if that’s true and what if that’s not true?

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#7

Post by dzbarsky » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

bcardarella wrote: post #3

I wonder how much this work being pushed forward right now is a response to the Bun drama.

None? All of these things were in flight for a while and given Zigs anti-AI stance i think they wrote off Bun ever since the acquisition

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#8

Post by quikoa » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

These improvements are quite promising and I'm looking forward to giving that a spin once it is released.

Will the Windows side for 0.17.x get some compiler improvements as well or is this Linux only?

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#9

Post by bcardarella » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

kristoff_it wrote: post #4

bcardarella wrote: post #3

I wonder how much this work being pushed forward right now is a response to the Bun drama.

None of it, we've been working on this stuff for a long time already, scroll the devlog backwards, you will find plenty of entries on that topic. It's the opposite: people have become more receptive to communication about this work now that there's "drama" attached to it. This post I co-authored with Andrew is from 2020. In it we announce the idea of getting rid of LLVM from the debug build pipeline and since then wo…

I'm very glad to see the work, thank you for all of the efforts.

Re: Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog

#10

Post by derefr » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:42 PM UTC

So, this linker does fast incremental linking, which is great for development iteration speed.

But I assume that any kind of incremental linking, is mutually exclusive with link-time optimization? I.e. you'd never want to use this option for a release build?