[jamiejquinn]

If you don't use zig, you might have missed why that error indicates a stdlib bug. The error in the article is down to a quirk of the type system where literals (like the literal float) have their own unique type (comptime_float) that can coerce to related types (f32, f64) but in this particular case, when atan switches on the type, it doesn't explicitly include comptime_float and fails. Seems like an oversight in the stdlib to me.

[amoss]

Missed all of that, thanks for the explanation. Why doesn't zig try and apply the coercion before the type switch - is this deliberate for safety?

[pcwalton]

Because "else" technically includes "comptime_float", so that case is handled, just not in the way that's expected.

One of the downsides of comptime over generics is that, because it's low-level and procedural instead of high-level and declarative, things like automatically inserting coercions become harder.

[jamiejquinn]

I'm not sure but I would guess it's in the spirit of Zig's "explicit over implicit" philosophy. They are technically different types.