[AndyKelley]

Endgame: After creating a language that encourages programmers to make robust and optimal software, using a toolchain that exemplifies these ideals by providing an order of magnitude faster development iteration speed, point this energy towards the ecosystem, with a focus on our core principle of prioritizing the needs of end users. Building upon this rich ecosystem of high quality software, create and maintain free, libre, and open-source applications that outcompete proprietary versions. I want to see the next Blender, the next Postgresql, the next Linux. This is my vision.

Mitchell's Ghostty project is a perfect example of this movement. At least, it will be when it is open sourced.

[rc00]

> I want to see the next Blender, the next Postgresql, the next Linux. This is my vision.

Do you think it makes sense to augment these existing (and successful) open source projects with Zig (language and/or toolchain)? Or should something grassroots and written primarily in Zig be their eventual successor?

[samatman]

This is one of the shining features of the language: either of these is a viable option. Zig is a great way to build C projects, with native cross-compiling, and the semantics make it straightforward to supply a C API for Zig libraries to add to existing code in C. Depending on the specifics, it can make sense for a C codebase to switch to Zig's build system just for excellent cross compilation, without writing anything in Zig.

I think once Zig stops being a moving target, we'll see an increasing number of C codebases writing some of the new code in Zig, moving over to the build system, and taking it from there. There are a lot of decisions which make this easy. As an example, idiomatic Zig code which allocates memory receives an Allocator, where C uses malloc and free. So there's a C allocator, which provides the Allocator interface to malloc and free, meaning Zig code can create objects and pass the memory to C, which can free it later.

There's a lot of C code out there which is working just fine, and if it ain't broke, no need to fix it. But if it's easy to do new work in a nicer language (to my taste, Zig is definitely that), why not? Then maybe rewrite some preprocessor-heavy C code using comptime.

The main thing holding this back (though it's already happening) is that Zig is pre-1.0. That imposes a maintenance burden which not everyone is willing to take on. But that won't last forever.

[AndyKelley]

Now that you mention it I forgot an important one! I want to see the next VLC. And in fact J-B has mentioned on IRC that he would be interested to see contributions to the project using Zig.

[geon]

I interpreted it as examples of excellent open source software that Andy wants to see more of. Not that those projects should be replaced.

Specifically, those are applications that are arguably better than their proprietary alternatives.

Perhaps we can se a

* DAW

* Photoshop alternative (no, gimp was never it)

* Video editor

[rc00]

> I interpreted it as examples of excellent open source software that Andy wants to see more of. Not that those projects should be replaced.

Thank you.

[zdragnar]

Why contribute to a monopoly when you can lay the foundation for greener grass for more competitors?

There's arguments both ways; what it really boils down to is what you value.

[zozbot234]

> ... I want to see the next Blender, the next Postgresql, the next Linux. This is my vision.

That's a really nice thought. Maybe instead of "Move fast and break things" we can have "Move Zig for great justice."

[rc00]

I much prefer the pattern I've noticed with the recent generation of Go projects. What I mean is that I find myself more and more often going to a project's repository to check for an issue or open a pull request, only to find that it is written in Go. After the initial hype cycle, Go silently started being the engine many useful tools were written in. While I understand that Zig needs to have some level of getting the word out early on, ultimately having great projects arrive that are written in Zig (that don't need a "written in Zig" tag line as a sort of marketing gimmick) would be the best statement. This pattern I've observed with Go holds true for projects written in TypeScript, Python, and even C as well but Go is the more recent entry.

Effectively, less focus on slogans and more on great projects that solve actual problems. Sometimes moving in silence can speak volumes. (In chess, there's a saying: "Move in silence. Only speak when it's time to say, 'Checkmate.'")

But your sentiment was great! :D

[pjmlp]

I rather love three specific projects that are rather vocal about Go actually.

TamaGo, TinyGo and the Go compiler toolchain itself.

As they are all good examples regarding Go's suitability for systems programming, regardless of the usual discussion of what is systems programming about.

[rc00]

These are great but none of them would be considered "recent generation" for this scope and it actually highlights the point rather well. Those projects started before this resurgence in Go and the first two are likely branding artifacts of the Go vs Rust period that the open source software engineering field was in at the time.

A good example of what I mean is a project like Ollama. If you look at the repository's main page, the only hints that it is written in Go are in the file tree, the GitHub language graph, and the topic labels. This is a project that was started in 2023 and exemplifies the lack of necessity to brand the project with "written in Go" likely because Go has really taken hold in CLI application development. (This could have easily been called Gollama. :D)