Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Zambyte 417 days ago
> Curious onlookers want to know if the Zig ecosystem and community will be as hostile to the decades of C libraries as the Rust zealots have been.

Definitely not the case in Zig. From my experience, the relationship with C libraries amounts to "if it works, use it".
1 comments
rc00 417 days ago
Are you referring to static linking? Dynamic linking? Importing/inclusion? How does this translate (no pun intended) when the LLVM backend work is completed? Does this extend to reproducible builds? Hermetic builds?

And the relationship with C libraries certainly feels like a placeholder, akin to before the compiler was self-hosted. While I have seen some novel projects in Zig, there are certainly more than a few "pure Zig" rewrites of C libraries. Ultimately, this is free will. I just wonder if the Zig community is teeing up for a repeat of Rust's actix-web drama but rather than being because of the use of unsafe, it would be due to the use of C libraries instead of the all-Zig counterparts (assuming some level of maturity with the latter). While Zig's community appears healthier and more pragmatic, hype and ego have a way of ruining everything.

link
Zambyte 417 days ago
> static linking?

Yes

> Dynamic linking?

Yes

> Importing/inclusion?

Yes

> How does this translate (no pun intended) when the LLVM backend work is completed?

I'm not sure what you mean. It sounds like you think they're working on being able to use LLVM as a backend, but that has already been supported, and now they're working on not depending on LLVM as a requirement.

> Does this extend to reproducible builds?

My hunch would be yes, but I'm not certain.

> Hermetic builds?

I have never heard of this, but I would guess the same as reproducible.

> While I have seen some novel projects in Zig, there are certainly more than a few "pure Zig" rewrites of C libraries.

It's a nice exercise, especially considering how close C and Zig are semantically. It's helpful for learning to see how C things are done in Zig, and rewriting things lets you isolate that experience without also being troubled with creating something novel.

For more than a few not rewrites, check out https://github.com/allyourcodebase, which is a group that repackages existing C libraries with the Zig package manager / build system.

link