[SonnyTark]

This is a very confusing blog post. I found myself looking for ChatGPT markers because it doesn't make sense to say: omg zig is so much cooler than C here's why, then start listing the absolute basics of the language that are identical in most modern languages without any actual reflection why writing the same thing in a different syntax somehow makes zig superior?

[scotty79]

What I got was:

  - pointers to bitfields
  - checked bitshifts
  - small ints like u4
  - imperative array initialization blocks
  - test code blocks
  - equivalent of debugger; keyword from js
  - some vague stuff about being able to do at compile time

The rest is pretty generic

[beej71]

I had to dig farther on the compile time execution stuff. It's actually pretty cool-looking. Recommend digging into it. I don't know that it's a killer enough feature to draw me away from Rust's guarantees, but it is interesting.

[jandrewrogers]

It is difficult to overstate how useful compile-time execution is in practice. I can't imagine using a systems language without it now. The term "modern C++" largely denotes when compile-time execution was added to that language.

I would love to see Rust get compile-time execution that is as capable as Zig or C++20.

[kllrnohj]

> I would love to see Rust get compile-time execution that is as capable as Zig or C++20.

Isn't that just macros which are way more powerful than what Zig or C++20 offer?

[nicce]

> I would love to see Rust get compile-time execution that is as capable as Zig or C++20.

Can you give examples? Const functions are pretty capable in Rust already.

[bigbuppo]

They're excited about their new hammer.

[raldu]

Titles get the headlines.

[muragekibicho]

I've learnt this the hard way. The most important thing is to get you to click. Sometimes I'll first iterate over the title before even writing on substack.

[tamnd]

I have learned that too. If you write about C, almost no one clicks. It is not new, it is not flashy, and it does not promise easy results. Yet almost everything still runs on it. The quiet parts of computing rarely get attention, even though they keep everything working.

I still write about C anyway. It may not trend, but it lasts.

[tialaramex]

I'm sure I'm not alone - after decades - already knowing far too much about C, so that any article I'm likely to read either I'm like "No, that's wrong and I even understand why you thought that, but it's still wrong" or I just nod along and sigh.

I spent a substantial fraction of my professional career writing C, and I remain interested in WG14 (the language committee) and in several projects written in C though I avoid writing any more of it myself.

The reason it's so widespread is called "Worse is Better" and I believe that has somewhat run its course. If you weren't aware of "Worse is better" a quick Google should find you the original essay on that topic years back.

In contrast when I read an article about say Zig, or Swift, I am more likely to learn something new.

But I can certainly endorse your choice to write about whatever you want - life is too short to try to get a high score somehow.

[tamnd]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have never deployed any production C code and I would not choose C for professional work either, but learning it, with all its rough edges, has made me a better engineer. It helps me understand how things really work under the hood. No pain, no gain.

Maybe I am biased, but for professional work, I stay with Go. I have built large distributed data systems that handle hundreds of millions of business transactions daily, and Go has been steady and reliable for that scale. Its simplicity, strong concurrency model, and easy deployment make it practical for production systems. I still enjoy exploring Zig and Rust in my spare time, but for shipping real systems, Go continues to get the job done without getting in the way.

[lelanthran]

> I still write about C anyway. It may not trend, but it lasts.

> I have never deployed any production C code and I would not choose C for professional work either

What do you write about C, if not for practical usage in the industry? Can you post some links?

FWIW, since you seem interested, here are some blog posts of mine specifically about practical usage of C, some of which got a little discussion here on HN in the past:

https://www.lelanthran.com/chap13/content.html

https://www.lelanthran.com/chap9/content.html

https://www.lelanthran.com/chap5/content.html

[tamnd]

> I'm sure I'm not alone - after decades - already knowing far too much about C, so that any article I'm likely to read either I'm like "No, that's wrong and I even understand why you thought that, but it's still wrong" or I just nod along and sigh.

If you have some spare time, I would really like to hear more about your experiences. It sounds like you have worked with C for a long time, and that kind of insight is hard to find now.

Most people around me started with JavaScript or TypeScript as their first language, and for many, that is still all they know. I mean no disrespect, it is just how things are today. It would be great to hear how your view of programming has changed over the years and what lessons from C still matter in your work today.

[lelanthran]

> It sounds like you have worked with C for a long time, and that kind of insight is hard to find now.

I've already replied to you in a sibling post, but I have been writing in C since the mid-90s; there's really not that much insight you get specifically to C.

[johnisgood]

How old are you? I am asking because of "Most people around me started with JavaScript or TypeScript as their first language".

Am I old? I am 31, and I started with C around age 14 (writing mods for ioquake3 forks), been my most used programming language ever since.

[zamadatix]

An alternative view of "not new and flashy" is "known and expected", which not 100% of C conversations have to be. Just look at the excitement around Fil-C lately!

[tamnd]

Oh, and I just submitted a link to my article about C. I am pretty sure no one will click it.

Articles about C never get much traffic, but that is fine. I wrote it because I care about how things really work, not because I expect it to trend. If even a few people read it and see the beauty in the old language that still runs the world, that is enough.

[rand0m4r]

I would like to find more articles on C so feel free to share, thanks

[tamnd]

Here is the link for you: https://github.com/little-book-of/c/blob/main/articles/zig-i...

I hope next month I will have more time to write deep dives into the internals of SQLite, PostgreSQL, Redis and maybe curl, all written in C.

[zobzu]

thanks, i enjoyed reading it (though a bit lengthy).

what gets me personally is what you describe at https://github.com/little-book-of/c/blob/main/articles/zig-i... - zig is made to feel easy and modern for people who don't know any better, and it does this well. But as soon as you actually need to do complex stuff, it gets in the way moreso than C and it's current environment/ecosystem will.

And to be fair, as much as I enjoyed writing in C in my younger years - I only use C when I actually need C. And asm when I actually need asm. Most of my code now uses higher level languages - this puts zig into such a niche.. it feels like golang to me: the cool language that isn't really solving as much of a need as you'd think.

[tamnd]

and my favorites:

   - https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/04/07/writing-c-for-curl/
   - https://www.sqlite.org/whyc.html

[rand0m4r]

thanks again

[antegamisou]

Honestly this (the fact it is being massively upvoted) looks a lot more like paid promotion. Not the first time and not the only example of submission btw.

[aib]

You're absolutely correct! </s>

The "how to modify an environment variable" bit and the bin-dec-hex table made me feel the same way. Then I saw the part explaining how to check for duplicates in a row... I'm struggling to understand the point of the article. Testing a text generator?

[joaogui1]

Also bizarre that it got to the front page of HN while being so low quality :/

[dustymcp]

Well i think that is why it got there people really love hating :)