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Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

ziglang.org

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Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#201

Post by bro45x »

lerno wrote: post #185

I just have to add another reflection: One thing that tends to be overlooked when discussing changes is the ecosystem effect of frequent changes. A language that breaks frequently doesn't just impose upgrade work on apps, but also discourages the creation of long-lived libraries and tools. Anything that sits between the language and the user (linters, bindings, frameworks, teaching material, tutorials etc) has to to…

Zig's worth it though. I don't care for libraries that aren't maintained anyway. If they don't maintain it, it's just bad anyway. Why do you always nag about Zig. Stop shilling your C3 here.

Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#202

Post by rkangel »

rtfeldman wrote: post #15
h4ch1 wrote: post #2

I would really like to hear from people using Zig in production/semi-serious applications; where software stability is important. How's your experience with the constantly changing language? How're your update/rewrite cycles looking like? Are there cases where packages you may use fall behind the language? I know Bun's using zig to a degree of success, was wondering how the rest were doing.

I maintain a ~250K LoC Zig compiler code base [0]. We've been through several breaking Zig releases (although the code base was much smaller for most of that time; Writergate is the main one we've had to deal with since the code base crossed the 100K LoC mark). The language and stdlib changing hasn't been a major pain point in at least a year or two. There was some upgrade a couple of years ago that took us awhile to…

Are you aware that your Github README doesn't actually tell us anything about Roc is or why we might be interested?

This might be on purpose given the first words are "Work in progress" and "not ready for release", but linking as above does lose some value.

Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#203

Post by bro45x »

lerno wrote: post #103

It’s good to see that this is finally addressed. It’s been a well known broken part of the language semantics for years. There are similar hidden quirks in the language that will need to be addressed at some point, such as integer promotion semantics. To address the question about stability: the Zig community are already used to Zig breaking between 0.x versions. Unlike competitors such as Odin or my own C3, there is…

Zig is great. If frequent updates are the price for that, so be it.

Honestly it’s kind of narrow-minded not to appreciate how different its approach to low-level programming is. You either see it or you don’t.

C3 is basically just C with a few extra bells and whistles. Still the same old C. Why would I use that when Zig exists? Actually never mind, don’t bother answering.

And the doomer posts are so predictable. That’s usually when you know Zig is doing something right.

Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#204

Post by 9rx »

andrewl-hn wrote: post #70
bayindirh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously asking, where Go sits in this categorization?

Go is modern Java, at least based on the main area of usage: server infrastructure and backend services.

Go is modern/faster Python.

- It was explicitly intended to "feel dynamically-typed"

- Tries to live by the zen of Python (more than Python itself!)

- Was built during the time it was fashionable to use Python for the kinds of systems it was designed for, with Google thinking at the time that they would benefit from moving their C++ systems to that model if they could avoid incurring the performance problems associated with Python. Guido Van Rossum was also employed at Google during this time. They were invested in that sort of direction.

- Often reads just like Python (when one hasn't gone deep down the rabbit hole of all the crazy Python features)

Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#205

Post by throwaway27448 »

mikkupikku wrote: post #196
throwaway27448 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what a TUI is (i'm guessing "terminal ui" as if the term CLI doesn't exist lmao) but yea, they could have put effort into their product and not forced people to use their atrocious ncurses interface which is like the worst of all worlds: text interface without the benefit of the shell, zero accessibility.

CLI refers more to non-interactive programs used through a shell, programs like grep or or indeed the `claude` program in non-interactive modes. TUIs (text user interfaces) refers to interactive programs implemented in a terminal interface, what you call ncurses interfaces (but usually aren't implemented using ncurses these days.) They're GUIs in text, so TUIs. Anyway, their decision to implement a TUI was definitely…

Hmm. You've given me a lot to think about. I appreciate the effort, and thank you for replying with it.

Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#207

Post by MintPaw »

bro45x wrote: post #201
lerno wrote: post #185

I just have to add another reflection: One thing that tends to be overlooked when discussing changes is the ecosystem effect of frequent changes. A language that breaks frequently doesn't just impose upgrade work on apps, but also discourages the creation of long-lived libraries and tools. Anything that sits between the language and the user (linters, bindings, frameworks, teaching material, tutorials etc) has to to…

Zig's worth it though. I don't care for libraries that aren't maintained anyway. If they don't maintain it, it's just bad anyway. Why do you always nag about Zig. Stop shilling your C3 here.

This kind of thought is popular in the web world where browsers get an update every 3 days and you don't control the hosting services, so constant maintenance is unavoidable.

But in the world of desktop development it's possible for a library to be "done", having a 100% stable codebase going forward and requiring no maintenance. And it's not bad, it's actually good.

Requiring every dependency to be constantly maintained is a massive drain on productivity.

Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#208

Post by jhatemyjob »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #33
jibal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This seems unnecessarily hostile. They are asking. Here.

It seems hostile to you, but surely you can see what he's replying to is way more hostile and passive aggressive?

Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#209

Post by CyberDildonics »

duped wrote: post #157
nulltype wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to say that one needs unused variables.

If I comment out sections of code while debugging or iterating I don't want a compile error for some unused variable or argument. Warning. fine, but this happens to me so frequently that the idea of unused variables being an error is insane to me.

It is insane and you are completely right. This has been a part of programming for over 50 years. Unfortunately you aren't going to get anywhere with zig zealots, they just get mad when confronted with things like this that have no justification, but they don't want to admit it's a mistake.

Re: Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

#210

Post by portly »

burgerone wrote: post #186

What makes zig special as a language? I have the impression that it has quite a large fan base here on HN but don't really hear any talks about it anywhere else.

I can share mine. I am not sure if this connects with you because maybe you are more experienced.

I'm DevOps writing boring Python microservices for €. I have no CS background and never did systems programming. However, writing Python always bothered me because there are so many layers between you and what's happening on the metal. For me, Django is the peak example of this, to me it feels almost like doing no code. It makes me very uncomfortable writing it.

Then I heard about this new programming language Zig on YouTube and I just gave it a try. After using it for a few months, I really like it. I guess mostly because it is so explicit.

It is almost like the language encourages you to think in terms of system design. Zig offers a lot of freedom so you can design the perfect tool for your problem. And somehow, it feels very effective for it. I think it is a blessing that there are few third party libraries for the same reason.

For example. I am working on a tool to parse CIM (some XML standard). If I had to use Python for this, my solution would probably use the most popular xml parsing library and then go from there. Yawn.

Instead, with Zig I started to think with a very fresh mind about the problem. I started thinking more from the first principles of the problem. And I got very excited again about programming. During my swimming practice or biking, I kept thinking about the design and how I can make it simpler and improving it by simply not doing certain busy work. I can't fully explain it. But the language gets you in that mindset.

Maybe other system languages also offer this experience, Zig (marketing?) just happened to cross my paths at the right moment.

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