[shmolyneaux]

The problem for newcomers is something I faced when trying to use Zig, particularly for the build system. I heard a lot about how much nicer the build system is in Zig compared to other tools. However, as someone unfamiliar with C/C++ build systems I found it very hard to get anything configured.

In contrast, I tried to learn CMake after. Despite my gripes about the CMake language itself, I found it relatively straightforward to do everything I wanted. Docs, backwards-compatibility, and LLMs made it all easy to set up. I have a hybrid C++/Rust project that compiles to desktop/WASM with debug/release builds.

When the build system for Zig stabilizes I'm sure things will be better, but the breaking changes are rough based on my recent experience.

[scrubs]

Zig's build system is in zig code. Cmake/make/ninja/meson are not. That's a notable difference.

My initial take on the zig stuff is that it's a bit complex ...