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Zig by Example

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Re: Zig by Example

#81

Post by pepa65 »

jdw64 wrote: post #42
pseidemann wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to learn systems programming, I can recommend learning C. If you want to learn a programming language which allows systems programming, I guess Rust is not a bad choice. But it might be less helpful if the systems basics are unknown.

I'm an industrial equipment programmer, so I do see C quite often. Actually, aside from C, it's just that when I first learned programming in college, I started with C. I thought that was only natural, but I guess I didn't explain enough. Inside my own head, C just feels like a given.

In that case, definitely learn Rust, it will expand your thinking about programming and be useful. Zig would just be too similar to C.

Re: Zig by Example

#83

Post by Jblx2 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #74
systems wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, it also made by the same guy behind the boring go book which probably means that boring go is also most likely AI generated nowadays before reading or buying any book, we need to extensively investigate the author, the author name is now more important than ever, i think whenever a book is shared, the author need to me highlighted

> nowadays before reading or buying any book, we need to extensively investigate the author I mean not really. You read a paragraph or two and notice the quality of the text, start getting suspicious and continue two or three paragraphs more, notice some very basic inconsistencies/incoherence, realize it's AI-written and ctrl+w the tab (or put back the book in the shelf) and move on with your life. If there is no sam…

You can just read a paragraph or two of each email, and then decide whether or not to delete them. We don't additional tools to combat spam.

Re: Zig by Example

#84

Post by zuzululu »

yrds96 wrote: post #50

This is outdated and AI generated. If you want a good source of zig learning material interactive and by examples please check out ziglings: https://codeberg.org/ziglings It's writen and tested by humans, which is essential for learning purposes. It's listed in the official zig website, by the way. This project is always up to date to the latest zig release.

I think this is a major problem with Zig in that they've cornered themselves into not utilizing AI and have attracted anti-AI absolutist crowd that is going to be a major hinderance.

As a Rust user, AI has put Rust easily in the hands of developers who were previously intimidated by it. I've learned a ton about Rust simply by fiddling with LLMs and asking questions to other Rust devs who don't really care whether AI is used.

As soon as you give into the mob rule, your existence is going to depend entirely on the ideology of the crowd and you lose the ability to adapt and remain competitive. ex) "modern audience" games from large studios.

Re: Zig by Example

#85

Post by hwntw »

jdw64 wrote: post #21

Is Zig just a trend, or will it become a solidly established language? After all, learning something is an investment of time. With Zig, it doesn't seem to have the same kind of industry pressure as Rust. There's talk in open source circles about AI-related issues, and on Hacker News people say good things about Zig. The allocator concept looks great. But there's also a possibility that it won't become mainstream, li…

I'd say it's worth learning new languages even purely for the sake and love of learning! That goes to both Rust and Zig, Rust is arguably more intellectually interesting, whereas with Zig you'll probably be writing useable hobby projects much quicker (I decided to tackle learning Zig and reading Crafting Interpreters simultaneously, transliterating the code in the book as I went along).

Zig will be much easier to learn than Rust, but it's worth noting that it's syntactically very unstable between releases (there were some huge changes between 0.15.2 and 0.16 to anything involving IO).

It's really hard to predict what you'll actually use professionally in the future or what's going to be popular in ten years, but some of the greatest value comes from just learning a huge variety of topics.

I'm a firm believer in prioritising enjoyment over utility, and I've always found that utility has flowed backwards from the enjoyment. And even if it doesn't, you've had a good time and found yourself richer for it!

Re: Zig by Example

#86

Post by embedding-shape »

Jblx2 wrote: post #83
embedding-shape wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nowadays before reading or buying any book, we need to extensively investigate the author I mean not really. You read a paragraph or two and notice the quality of the text, start getting suspicious and continue two or three paragraphs more, notice some very basic inconsistencies/incoherence, realize it's AI-written and ctrl+w the tab (or put back the book in the shelf) and move on with your life. If there is no sam…

You can just read a paragraph or two of each email, and then decide whether or not to delete them. We don't additional tools to combat spam.

Kind of feels like a slightly different thing, I don't spend days/weeks reading through one email.

Re: Zig by Example

#87

Post by zuzululu »

jdw64 wrote: post #21

Is Zig just a trend, or will it become a solidly established language? After all, learning something is an investment of time. With Zig, it doesn't seem to have the same kind of industry pressure as Rust. There's talk in open source circles about AI-related issues, and on Hacker News people say good things about Zig. The allocator concept looks great. But there's also a possibility that it won't become mainstream, li…

I predict it will go the way of Ruby but far less adoption or jobs available since Zig community as a whole is anti-AI, which makes it impossible to operate with modern times.

Re: Zig by Example

#88

Post by zuzululu »

loeg wrote: post #13
eclectric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested to learn why that is a problem. As a new Rust learner, I am curious.

It might not be the version you have installed, or the same version as another project you want to glue together into a single application.

wow. this is a major miss from Zig.

on top of the decision to ban AI, I can see that we haven't seen the last of bad decisions from Zig

Re: Zig by Example

#89

Post by tialaramex »

Decabytes wrote: post #66
jdw64 wrote: post #21

Is Zig just a trend, or will it become a solidly established language? After all, learning something is an investment of time. With Zig, it doesn't seem to have the same kind of industry pressure as Rust. There's talk in open source circles about AI-related issues, and on Hacker News people say good things about Zig. The allocator concept looks great. But there's also a possibility that it won't become mainstream, li…

Here is where I think Zig shines. When you are a high level programmer that needs to drop down to a low level programming language for performance reasons. The issue with doing that as a high level programmer is that you don't do a lot of low level work frequently. So unless you work in another domain where you do a lot of low level programming, then every time you drop down you will be out of practice. This favors u…

I think if you need to get so close to the bare metal that you'd need unsafe Rust then the equivalent Zig is also too dangerous to use "infrequently". Stuff like writing raw assembly, pointer twiddling, volatile stores or fetches - I would hire somebody with lots more experience to do that properly once if you need it.

On the other hand if safe Rust is an option that's way more handholding than you're getting in Zig. Lots of "Whoops I forgot" mistakes won't even compile in safe Rust because it couldn't see why they're OK and that's required but in Zig now you've written a bug.

Re: Zig by Example

#90

Post by lukaslalinsky »

jdw64 wrote: post #21

Is Zig just a trend, or will it become a solidly established language? After all, learning something is an investment of time. With Zig, it doesn't seem to have the same kind of industry pressure as Rust. There's talk in open source circles about AI-related issues, and on Hacker News people say good things about Zig. The allocator concept looks great. But there's also a possibility that it won't become mainstream, li…

I feel that Zig will stay a niche language. In this world, there is no reason for corporations to use anything but Rust for this kind of code. And without the corporate push, it will probably still exist for a long time, but the D trajectory is what I predict. I really like the language and I hope it gets more popular, but it seems unlikely to me.
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