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Zig: A new direction for low-level programming?

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Re: Zig: A new direction for low-level programming?

#11
post #6

I like the try/catch of Zig. It is innovative. Moreover Zig is a research playground. Ideas will find their way to D/Nim. Zig CC is another innovation. The compile time is also a great experiment. It brings a lot to the table. May not be a total C replacement, but it is an improvement and lots of C code, can be written in Zig. Lots of people can be introduced to Systems Programming with Zig. For Low Level coding, hav…

What people want today is easy cross platform coding, something poorly served by C, but served much better by both Zig and Odin.

Re: Zig: A new direction for low-level programming?

#14
The message I got upon connecting to this site:

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> Malware Website Warning

> The website you are trying to access is known to host malware and poses a security risk to your computer and network. Please contact your IT help desk to review if you are impacted. If you think you are receiving this message in error, please contact your IT help desk.

I guess you should know your website is seen as a malware vector.

Re: Zig: A new direction for low-level programming?

#15

The message I got upon connecting to this site: > Website Access Prohibited > Malware Website Warning > The website you are trying to access is known to host malware and poses a security risk to your computer and network. Please contact your IT help desk to review if you are impacted. If you think you are receiving this message in error, please contact your IT help desk. I guess you should know your website is seen a…

Some anti-malware vendors apply this classification to the whole .cc domain.

Re: Zig: A new direction for low-level programming?

#16

The message I got upon connecting to this site: > Website Access Prohibited > Malware Website Warning > The website you are trying to access is known to host malware and poses a security risk to your computer and network. Please contact your IT help desk to review if you are impacted. If you think you are receiving this message in error, please contact your IT help desk. I guess you should know your website is seen a…

Some anti-malware vendors apply this classification to the whole .cc domain.

I see. That might be what's happened, then.

Re: Zig: A new direction for low-level programming?

#19
Back when it still had async support, I looked at using Zig in QEMU.

My main qualm with it is that it doesn't try to integrate with existing C programs. The ideal C replacement for me would be a two-way per-file C transpiler, in the same way as the Vala language was. Cython also works the same way even though it's not a C replacement.

Having to know the full set of Zig sources in advance due to error types, and the strong accent on Zig as a build system, are both a non starter for integration in existing large C programs, for example.

Re: Zig: A new direction for low-level programming?

#20
> Of course, if you don’t use pos, the compiler will say that this is an error and refuse to compile as well. And if you discard that error (typically using _ = pos;), the compiler will complain that it should be a const.

This was one of the main things that bothered me about Zig when I last tried it. This actively works against me when writing prototypes, exploratory code, and especially when writing code to learn the language. I get the rationale, that it's trying to protect me from shipping poorly designed code. But helicopter mom features do not belong in a programming language. They are just as hindering to progress as a literal one would be to a grown man, and for the exact same reasons. I know Andrew has made up his mind, but minds can be changed. So please, Andrew, please take away this helicopter mom feature.

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