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Zig is hard but worth it

(ratfactor.com)
401 points signa11 | 1 comments | 01 Jun 23 10:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.235s | source
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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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1. audunw ◴[01 Jun 23 13:32 UTC] No.36150795[source]▶
I like Zigs justification for not having general purpose operator overloading (no hidden function calls and loops)

But I wish they added:

1. Ability to declare completely pure functions that have no loops except those which can be evaluated at compile time. Something with similar constraints as eBPF in other words. These could be useful in many contexts. 2. Ability to explicitly import overloaded operators, that can only be implemented using these pure guaranteed-to-finish-in-a-fixed-number-of-cycles functions.

Then you'd get operator overloading that can be used to implement any kind of mathematical function, but not all kinds of crazy DSL-like stuff which is outside the scope of Zig (I have nothing against that, I've done crazy stuff in Ruby myself, but it's not suitable for Zig)