> I don't think Rust is "a better C/C++". It's a new kind of beast. Interesting, but very different.
The same can be said about Zig's comptime. It's entirely unlike anything C, C++ or Rust has to offer.
> I expect LLMs to be really good at converting C to Zig.
While it's possible to translate C to Zig code - and you don't need an LLM for that, it's a Zig compiler/build-system feature - the result will be quite different from a project that's developed in Zig from the ground up since the translation output wouldn't make use of Zig's unique features (and Zig isn't really unique as 'C translation target', C can also be translated to unsafe Rust, or even to Javascript - see early Emscripten versions).
Also, the 'C compatibility' of Zig is implemented via a separate compiler frontend, Rust toolchains could do exactly the same thing by integrating the Clang frontend into the Rust compiler.
Zig's comptime is an addition. You don't have to use it. And some C-macros may translate quite cleanly to it.
OTOH going from C++ (OO) to Rust (not OO, borrow checker) is a big leap.
Using the same language for compile-time and run-time programming is compelling, but doing it properly requires using the same approaches that dependently typed languages use. Comptime is a bit half baked.