Zig: Build System Reworked
ziglang.org120 points by tosh 3 hours ago
120 points by tosh 3 hours ago
I just upgraded some code to Zig 0.16.0 and I am actually really happy with the results. It impacted A LOT of things, but the changes were actually very good and seems to have set the language for a bright future, especially with the new IO mechanism which allows supper efficient code that looks good whether it's implemented single-threaded, multi-threaded or just via an event loop!
If you haven't tried Zig since 0.16.0 was released, I highly recommend having a look. The release notes for this release were huge!!
After having used Zig for a couple of months now I am convinced it is a fantastic tool language. You just pick it up to hack some idea together freely. Every time I hit a wall, I find the creators have thought of it already and offers comfort. But nothing gets in your face how to use the programming language "correctly".
For me it is now the go-to "tinker in my garage" language.
Is it really that good?
My go-to "tinker in my garage" language is Python - lightweight syntax that stays out of your face, batteries included, packages for everything that's not included. What's Zig's edge?
Have you ever thought "Ugh, this bit of Python code is running much slower than I expected on my computer. Wonder if anyone has written a native library for this"? That's probably the closest use case for someone who matches your description -- a language that is much more ergonomic, much more 'modern' feeling (in all the good ways), while still extremely compatible with C.
As for the language itself, it's going to be more verbose than your Python code. Cons: you'll have to spell out a lot of things that you thought were obvious assumptions. Pros: you will be able to look at a page of code and know with a great degree of certainty that there are no hidden gotchas. No monkey patching, no __init__. Basically, it just does what it says on the tin.
And finally, about the std lib and batteries: there's HTTP(S), compression algorithms, hash algorithms, RNG, I/O, the basic data structures you'd expect, JSON. Third-party libraries, if you choose not to vendor, are handled by including the repository url in a file (also automated by a CLI command), and then adding it to the build script (not automated). The `zig` command handles fetching and ensuring sanity, but otherwise assume a bit of elbow grease will need to be involved.
Rarely. Most tinkering tasks just don't have enough heavy duty computation in them to as much as strain a modern CPU. And most of the rest are covered by packages like numpy or pytorch.
For the rare exceptions, I make a C lib and call into it to get my numbers crunched. I get that Zig is a viable replacement for C there. But I don't see it replacing Python.
Not to mention that where heavy computation is required, Python often has libraries that are much, much faster than anything you can quickly hack together in C or Zig.
Zig is low level, so it will certainly not replace your python usage, it is more like a modern C than anything else. There’s a video of a recent interview with Andrew Kelley, if you want to watch it to understand better what Zig is for, it’s on Jetbrains YouTube channel.
No, I get that, but Zig being low level is kind of why I don't get why it would be a good tinkering language?
When I want to tinker, I just want my logic to work, first of all. In 9 cases out of 10 that means going for high level. Even if the resulting code works with low level things like binary structures.
Tinkering means different things to different people! Want to tinker with your hardware, as bare metal as possible? Or extract every inch of performance out of your CPU? Zig is great for that.
Low-level programming gets a bad name because C has many footguns and the spec leaves much behavior undefined - a fact that implementers use almost adversarially (which I'd support, if the goal was to refine the spec...).
C++ adds more high-level conveniences without actually removing the footguns and undefined behavior (much C code compiles in a C++ compiler).
Zig tries to keep the low-level C philosophy but have things more well factored and well defined. The result is you _can_ tinker in high-level code, yet "drop down" into low-level code as you desire.
(Compared to rust, you get fewer compiler-enforced guarantees, but unlike C the language isn't trying to make high-level code adversarial).
I like that you have more freedom. You can play around with some idea but once you want to do something "serious" you can break into it directly. I start simple but sometimes blip into some performance obsession and I find Zig allows that.
It’s definitely a great tinkering language but .. eh .. the Zig team and community are extremely opinionated about how to use the language correctly.
This sounds like great news, Zig's compilation times are already terrific and this is going to only make them better.
> Zig's compilation times are already terrific
In my experience, this (for now) is mostly aspirational. It's obviously a major goal, and there are clear milestones outlined on how to achieve it, but in practice the initial compile of an empty project or the excruciating pause when you `direnv allow` and ZLS needs to be (re)built are not what I'd describe as "terrific".
>(re)built are not what I'd describe as "terrific".
It sounds like you are a strong candidate to try out the new improvements mentioned in this devlog and see what benefits you can get for yourself.
Maybe you're right, but how many other system programming languages toolchains give you sub 50ms recompilations across millions of LoC?
So i checked the license of this project, can anyone pls clarify what is (Expat) after MIT License
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Carpentry would have been ideal career. Building real things, artisanal or not, and nobody insisting yet that the chest of drawers you're building include AI
Of course, the flip side is, modern construction isn't done with artisanal woodworking techniques.
I'm not even thinking of AI, but Rust. I guess I'm just uninterested in a "modern C".