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Things Zig comptime won't do

(matklad.github.io)
458 points JadedBlueEyes | 1 comments | 20 Apr 25 15:57 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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no_wizard ◴[20 Apr 25 16:53 UTC] No.43744932[source]▶
I like the Zig language and tooling. I do wish there was a safety mode that give the same guarantees as Rust, but it’s a huge step above C/C++. I am also extremely impressed with the Zig compiler.

Perhaps the safety is the tradeoff with the comparative ease of using the language compared to Rust, but I’d love the best of both worlds if it were possible

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hermanradtke ◴[20 Apr 25 16:59 UTC] No.43744960[source]▶
I wish for “strict” mode as well. My current thinking:

TypeScript is to JavaScript

as

Zig is to C

I am a huge TS fan.

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rc00 ◴[20 Apr 25 17:42 UTC] No.43745224[source]▶
Is Zig aiming to extend C or extinguish it? The embrace story is well-established at this point but the remainder is often unclear in the messaging from the community.
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1. yellowapple ◴[20 Apr 25 20:50 UTC] No.43746440[source]▶
The goal rather explicitly seems to be to extinguish it - the idea being that if you've got Zig, there should be no reason to need to write new code in C, because literally anything possible in C should be possible (and ideally done better) in Zig.

Whether that ends up happening is obviously yet to be seen; as it stands there are plenty of Zig codebases with C in the mix. The idea, though, is that there shouldn't be anything stopping a programmer from replacing that C with Zig, and the two languages only coexist for the purpose of allowing that replacement to be gradual.