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Zig is hard but worth it

(ratfactor.com)
401 points signa11 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.215s | source
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latch ◴[] No.36150665[source]
I've now written a lot of zig code (http.zig, websocket.zig, log.zig, zuckdb.zig, etc.) I think Zig falls into an "easy to learn, average/hard to master" category.

Some insiders underestimate the effort required for newcomers to build non-trivial things. I think this is because some of that complexity has to do with things like poor documentation, inconsistent stdlib, incompatible releases, slow release cycle, lack of package manager, etc. For an insider living and breathing Zig, not only aren't these huge challenges, they aren't really "Zig" - they are just transient growing pains. For someone getting started though, the current state of Zig is Zig.

I wish Zig had a polished package manager (there's one in the current development branch, but you don't as much use it as fight it). They could then move some of the less polished code into official experimental packages, helping to set expectations and maybe focus the development efforts.

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zoogeny ◴[] No.36151206[source]
I've lately thought that a package manager is as essential to a new language as a standard library. I would also add a LSP and standard code formatter to that list.

It is a bit unfortunate because all of the above is a pretty tall order. We're getting to the point that new languages are expected to boil the ocean by the time they reach 1.0

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1. adamrezich ◴[] No.36152038[source]
package managers are relatively easy to put together and release with your language—provided that you want your new package manager and surrounding ecosystem to work exactly the same as other, popular ones, without putting any effort into improving the status quo. doing better than other languages' package managers takes significant effort, because it's both a computer engineering problem and a social engineering problem.

it's nice when a new language has a package manager right out of the gate, but I would like to see more new languages take a more measured approach and aim to significantly improve upon past efforts, instead of merely replicating them out of some sense of obligation.