alt Hacker NewsI really wanted to deep dive into zig but I'm into rust now kinda late as I'm really just started like 2024.
Have you tried rust? how does it compared to zig?
* just asking
Replies
Zig is a modern C,
Rust is a modern C++/OCaml
So if you enjoy C++, Rust is for you. If you enjoy C and wish it was more verbose and more modern, try Zig.
Yes, I've written a few unsafe-focused crates [0], some of which have been modified & merged into the stdlib [1] [2] exposing them to the fringe edge-cases of Rust like strict provenance.
IMO, Rust is good for modeling static constraints - ideal when there's multiple teams of varying skill trying to work on the same codebase, as the contracts for components are a lot clearer. Zig is good for expressing system-level constructs efficiently: doing stuff like self-referential/intrusive data structures, cross-platform simd, and memory transformations is a lot easier in Zig than Rust.
Personally, I like Zig more.
[0] https://crates.io/users/kprotty
[1] https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/95801
[2] https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/a63150b9cb14896fc22f9...
Zig is what you want to write, because it gets out of the way.
Rust is what you want your colleagues to write, to enforce good practices and minimise bugs. It's also what I want my past self to have written, because that guy is always doing things that make my present life harder.
Two different philosophical approaches with Zig and Rust.
- Zig: Let's have a simple language with as few footguns as possible and make good code easy to write. However we value explicitness and allow the developer to do anything they need to do. C interoperability is a primary feature that is always available. We have run time checks for as many areas of undetermined behaviour as we can.
- Rust: let's make the compiler the guardian of what is safe to do. Unless the developer hits the escape hatch, we will disallow behaviour to keep the developer safe. To allow the compiler to reason about safety we will have an intricate type system which will contain concepts like lifetimes and data mobility. This will get complex sometimes so we will have a macro system to hide that complexity.
Zig is a lot simpler than Rust, but I think it asks more of it's developer.