CommunityNews

CommunityNews

Is Zig the Long Awaited C Replacement

Is Zig the Long Awaited C Replacement.
Comparison with previous C contenders such as C++, D, Java, C#, Go, Rust and Swift

https://erik-engheim.medium.com/is-zig-the-long-awaited-c-replacement-c8eeace1e692

This thread was posted by one of our members via one of our automated news source trackers.

First Post!

AstonJ

AstonJ

I like this article - lots of praise for languages like Julia, Go, Rust, Swift and also mentions V - which I hadn’t heard of before.

Where Zig Fits in the Programming Landscape?

So Swift never really worked out as my ultimate all purpose programming language. If I want to program at a higher abstraction level, get high performance and get stuff done I will go with Julia.

But that still leaves an unfilled space for a C like alternative. Julia cannot really replace C. It gobbles memory, cannot produce small binaries, isn’t that suitable for making libraries other languages can use. You would not want to use it to create an OS kernel or do microcontroller programming.

Both Go and Rust got really close to being a replacement of C. Go pulled off the getting the simplicity and a lot of the feeling of using C. But it uses garbage collection which doesn’t make it fully C replacement. It is worth nothing that you still have more control over memory usage in Go than in Java, since you got pointers and can actually create your own secondary allocators.

Rust got the manual memory allocation bit down, but failed in replicating the simplicity and feel of C. Is there perhaps something that fills the space between these two languages?

Indeed there is. That is exactly what I think Zig is. Zig is more complex than Go, but much simpler than Rust to learn and use.

But such a summary of Zig does not do the language justice. Zig brings a lot of new ideas to table which makes a lot of sense and which makes the experiencing of coding Zig quite unique. But before diving into that let us look at the basics.

And where V is mentioned:

Getting the Basics Right

If we are to pick up another C like language we cannot repeat the worst of C++ such as atrocious compilation times. How does Zig stack up?

I came across this test by Alexander Medvednikov, the creator of the V programming language. This is a test of compiling a file with a 400 K function:

  • C 5.2s gcc test.c
  • C++ 1m 25s g++ test.cpp
  • Zig 10.1s zig build-exe test.zig
  • Nim 45s nim c test.nim
  • Rust Stopped after 30 minutes rustc test.rs
  • Swift Stopped after 30 minutes swiftc test.swift
  • D Segfault after 6 minutes dmd test.d
  • V 0.6s v test.v

Rust, Swift and D all fail at this. Medvednikov does further tests of these languages with fewer lines, where again Rust does worst as expected.

As you can see in the list, Zig is among the star performers. Although it is hard to not notice that the V language does it all in less than a second. Which reminds me to explore V, in more detail. A quick scan suggests it is sort of Go with manual memory allocation, generics and optionals (null pointer must be explicitly allowed).

It’s a really good article well worth a read :+1:

Where Next?

Popular Backend topics Top

dimitarvp
Apparently he decided to live-stream how he’s going to create a semver library.
New
First poster: bot
Rust vs Go — Bitfield Consulting. Which is better, Rust or Go? Which language should you choose for your next project, and why? How do t...
New
First poster: bot
The Race to Replace C & C++. Three expert compiler writers sit down to discuss moving beyond C and C++ This thread...
New
First poster: bot
In a previous post we talked about implementing a simple video chat with WebRTC and Elixir. This update will touch on some of the API cha...
New
First poster: bot
In this post we’re going to be looking at a more advanced use of Gleam’s type system, known as phantom types. Hopefully by the end of thi...
New
paulanthonywilson
Post on using UDP multicasting with Elixir to broadcast presence, and listen for peers, on a local network. I have found this approach us...
New
First poster: malloryerik
Everyone outside of tech has heard of JavaScript, Java, Python, Ruby and even .Net, but few if any have heard of F#. However, F# may be o...
New
brainlid
In episode 92 of Thinking Elixir, we talk with Mitchell Hanberg and learn about why he created the alternate Phoenix templating language ...
New
fullstackplus
The Ruby ecosystem is rich with tools that make us developers more productive at what we do. Both Rails and Sinatra have been used to bui...
New
brainlid
In a 2 day spike, I created my own Elixir-based AI Personal Fitness Trainer! The surprising part for me was how useful and helpful I foun...
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
Or looking forward to? :nerd_face:
483 11975 256
New
Exadra37
I am thinking in building or buy a desktop computer for programing, both professionally and on my free time, and my choice of OS is Linux...
New
AstonJ
This looks like a stunning keycap set :orange_heart: A LEGENDARY KEYBOARD LIVES ON When you bought an Apple Macintosh computer in the e...
New
AstonJ
If you are experiencing Rails console using 100% CPU on your dev machine, then updating your development and test gems might fix the issu...
New
New
First poster: joeb
The File System Access API with Origin Private File System. WebKit supports new API that makes it possible for web apps to create, open,...
New
AstonJ
If you’re getting errors like this: psql: error: connection to server on socket “/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432” failed: No such file or directory ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Get the comprehensive, insider information you need for Rails 8 with the new edition of this award-winning classic. Sam Ruby @rubys ...
New
AstonJ
This is cool! DEEPSEEK-V3 ON M4 MAC: BLAZING FAST INFERENCE ON APPLE SILICON We just witnessed something incredible: the largest open-s...
New
mindriot
Ok, well here are some thoughts and opinions on some of the ergonomic keyboards I have, I guess like mini review of each that I use enoug...
New