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Zig is hard but worth it

(ratfactor.com)
401 points signa11 | 11 comments | 01 Jun 23 10:44 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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jsheard ◴[01 Jun 23 12:51 UTC] No.36150389[source]▶
I get what Zig is going for in making all operations as explicit as possible, but I fear that it's going to turn away fields like graphics and game development where it would be a good fit except for the lack of operator overloading forcing you to go back to C-style math function spaghetti. It's all fun and games until what should be a straightforward math expression turns into 8 nested function calls.
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bodge5000 ◴[01 Jun 23 13:00 UTC] No.36150475[source]▶
I'm no expert on zig, but the one area I have seen it shooting up in popularity is game dev. Though I guess that is largely as a replacement for C, so "C-style" wouldnt be much of a concern
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jsheard ◴[01 Jun 23 13:09 UTC] No.36150560[source]▶
Zig looks like a fine C replacement, but C isn't what people are using to make games in the vast majority of cases. It's all C++, and operator overloading is part of the "sane subset" that everyone uses even if they hate the excesses of modern C++ as a whole.
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1. felixgallo ◴[01 Jun 23 13:25 UTC] No.36150721[source]▶
as a long time game dev, I actively don't want operator overloading. That's some spooky action at a distance nonsense. I'm not sure I have seen a codebase that involved operator overloading, either, and I've worked in or near a good quantity of well-known titles.
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2. jsheard ◴[01 Jun 23 13:36 UTC] No.36150843[source]▶
There's no accounting for taste, but the two major publicly available engines (Unreal and Unity) both use operator overloading in their standard math types.
3. Taywee ◴[01 Jun 23 14:11 UTC] No.36151267[source]▶
You'd rather use explicit function calls for all linear algebra and geometry operations? I don't think adding two vectors using an overloaded + is that spooky or distant.
replies(1): >>36152896 #
4. flohofwoe ◴[01 Jun 23 15:51 UTC] No.36152896[source]▶
FWIW Zig can do that without operator overloading: https://www.godbolt.org/z/7zbxnncv6
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5. kprotty ◴[01 Jun 23 17:44 UTC] No.36154682{3}[source]▶
Vectors in Zig are SIMD types. Vectors in games are probably algebraic types. Using SIMD for the latter may not be that useful if 1) specific elements are accessed frequently 2) transformations involve a different operation happen on each element.
6. cyber_kinetist ◴[01 Jun 23 18:01 UTC] No.36154931{3}[source]▶
First of all that only works with vectors, but I want operator overloading to also work on things like matrices or custom types (for example quaterions, or a symmat3 struct that represents a symmetric 3x3 matrix using only 6 floats).

Additionally, for efficient math code you often want vector / matrix types in AOSOA fasion: for example Vec3<Float8> to store an AVX lane for each X/Y/Z component. I want vector/matrix operations to work on SIMD lanes, not just for scalar types, and Zig currently can't support math operators on these kinds of types.

replies(1): >>36155544 #
7. felixgallo ◴[01 Jun 23 18:46 UTC] No.36155544{4}[source]▶
I have a marvelous proof that you can solve that with comptime but unfortunately the margins of this website are too small to contain it.
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8. lvass ◴[01 Jun 23 19:55 UTC] No.36156503{5}[source]▶
Do us a pastebin, please.
9. chlorion ◴[02 Jun 23 02:19 UTC] No.36160066[source]▶
>That's some spooky action at a distance nonsense.

In pretty much all languages operators are just sugar for calling a method. There is no difference other than an easier to read syntax.

In rust for example, doing a + b is exactly the same as doing a.add(b).

In python it's exactly the same as doing a.__add__(b).

In C++, my understanding is that its sugar for a.operator+(b) or operator+(a, b).

I think there are some arguments against operator overloading but "spooky action at a distance" doesn't seem to be a very good one to me.

10. QQ00 ◴[02 Jun 23 06:47 UTC] No.36161875{5}[source]▶
You can use pastebin, or even better, use github gist.
11. another2another ◴[02 Jun 23 14:36 UTC] No.36165689{5}[source]▶
I think you have briefly deluded yourself with an irretrievable idea.