[0x37]

I don't usually like participating in bikeshedding, but the @ annotation feels like PHP's $ to me in that I don't see why it needs to exist. The language design could've easily just left that out and I don't think anything would be lost.

Other than that, I'm definitely excited for Zig as a potential C++ replacement.

[ptato]

Built-in names are essentially reserved words, and there are dozens of them. The @ prefix ensures you don't step on user's variable names, and that you can add new built-ins without making breaking changes.

[andrepd]

Why aren't they simply namespaced, like `core.some_function`?

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Because there'd need to be a magical exception for the "core" namespace that makes it not just a file of Zig code somewhere like every other module.

[hiccuphippo]

Isn't there already a magical exception for "root" and "builtin"?

[kristoff_it]

not really, those are two modules that are always available to you, but you still have to import them like any other Zig module `const builtin = @import("builtin");`

[nine_k]

5 characters to type instead of 1.

[tleb_]

My belief is that it is about builtin functions that are provided by the compiler versus part of the standard library. They are documented in the language reference [0] versus in the standard library documentation [1].

[0]: https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/

[1]: https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/std/

[kristoff_it]

> I don't see why it needs to exist

The symbol namespaces builtins, as those are the only identifiers that aren't declared in the file (either directly or by using `@import`).

[tialaramex]

Although namespacing them keeps them out from under a programmer's feet, which is a significant benefit, it does seem like this would make it harder to find stuff. @cmpxchgStrong, @wasmMemorySize and @embedFile are completely unrelated, but since they're all builtins they're neighbours.

[Conscat]

This is sort of an issue we already deal with in other languages, and imo it's not a huge deal in those. Personally I find @ more reasonable than __builtin_

[throwawaymaths]

one side benefit is that at lot of @ code is "dangerous shit" so it draws your eye during code review. You will want to code review the "dangerous shit" that GPT-5 gives you.