Zig NEWS

Cover image for Test, test, are we live?
Loris Cro
Loris Cro

Posted on • Updated on

Test, test, are we live?

Welcome to Zig NEWS!

This is a self-hosted instance of Forem (the same CMS used by dev.to) managed by yours truly. The idea is that if you want to create written content about Zig, this instance can help you with promoting it without any extra effort on your part.

I strongly believe that having your own blog (aka owning your own content) is largely preferable to giving up the fruit of your work to someone else by posting it on their platform, but I also know that there are a lot of people who maybe wouldn't mind writing about Zig occasionally, but who are also not interested in doing all the work necessary to set up their own thing.
This is what Zig NEWS is for.

Hopefully Zig NEWS can become a fun way of sharing parts of your Zig jurney with other Ziguanas.

PS
Check out the FAQs.

Art credit: DerTee from the Zig SHOWTIME Discord server.

Top comments (40)

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auguste profile image
Auguste Rame • Edited

Yay! It's exciting to be part of such a fantastic community of Ziguanas, thanks for the invite Loris! ❤🎉🦎

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meghan profile image
Meghan

All your articles are belong to us

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mbarnaba profile image
mbarnaba • Edited

Hello all,

I am Matteo, a scientific and HPC software developer from Italy.

I experimented a lot with zig in the last (rainy) days and this is my impression so far.

c++ is my favorite tool because it let's me be productive without getting too much in my way (sorry Rust, it is me, not you).

After reimplenting a couple of things (thread pools and GPU stuff) I originally wrote in C++ in zig I have to say that I am really impressed: zig really makes C++ look stupid in many ways.
The simplicity (readability) and the power of the language are just amazing.
So far 5 things struck me (in the most positive way possible) the most:

1) defer: one keyword to kill RAII, non copy types, move semantics, implicit deep copy, disengaged state, the rules of 1/5/7 and other nonsense that c++ had to make to repair RAII

2) comptime: just fantastic!! After years of C++ templates this feature is just refreshing and beatiful.
I learnt the zig language just by reading std, so nice.

3) C: zig uses C way better that C does :P

4) the fact that pointers to structs are automatically dereferenced when you access a field is just great, thank you for that as well.

5) errors: just great, just like comptime it is a refreshing, beatiful and sane way to do things.

bonus) the overal mindset is just great: simple and well written tools you combine to build what you need. Without to much abstraction and hiding (as if developers were dummies).

Overall I have to say that the language is just great and I think it is great replacement for C and C++ as well. Great job!!

Sorry for the long message.

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kristoff profile image
Loris Cro

Welcome!

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haze profile image
Haze

Hello World, everyone :D

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xq profile image
Felix "xq" Queißner

Did i join the party too late?

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renerocksai profile image
Rene Schallner

No

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paulfwatts profile image
Paul Watts

Hi everyone and greetings from Australia.

I'm very new to Zig but not to C.

Looking forward to learning and sharing with the Community here.

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melroy89 profile image
Melroy van den Berg

I'm still allowed to join the community in 2023 right? Never too late!

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tealeg profile image
Geoffrey J. Teale

Hey, and welcome to me (eating my own dogfood there ;-) ).

I've been playing around with Zig since November 2021, in a casual sort of way - I like what I see.. I'm 24 years into my professional software engineer career, and I've been a hobbiest a good 12 years longer (since I was 6 in 1983). Zig is filling a hole in my life that many would fill with Rust, but despite some really good ideas in Rust, I just can't stop hating the experience of using it. My day job is a combination of DevX and systems engineer for cloud platforms.

Excited to read more about zig here.

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freakynit profile image
Nitin Bansal

I have a genuine question regarding Zig:
How is zig able to keep syntax so so friendly while still managing to be a systems language that's as fast as C? I especially mean to compare it to rust which does the same thing, but suffers from vastly complex language syntax...
Thanks..

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kristoff profile image
Loris Cro

It's a matter of philosophy: in Zig the programmer is expected to be explicit and type more code to implement complex interactions. This is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse. In Rust you can trivially declare that a type fits a given interface by declaring that it implements a Trait, in Zig you have to do structural equality. On the flipside Rust keeps getting features that add magic to the language which make it harder for devs to have full knowledge of the language.

In my opinion C also meant to have a philosophy similar to Zig's, but it also features an endless chain of footguns and funky syntax that detract from its goal of simplicity.

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freakynit profile image
Nitin Bansal

Thanks @kristoff

I personally favor simplicity and visibility. Explicit is better than implicit. A language should be minimal, yet, complete. Rest everything should go into standard library, if needed.

Rust "almost" became a perfect language across all domains. But, the complexity of the language itself takes that perfectness away. We need a language like Rust, but without it's complexity. I believe Zig does fit really well here :)

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ralphjzhang profile image
Ralph Zhang

Hi everyone, it's exciting to join this community. I discover zig around mid 2022 and I love the simplicity and expressivity of zig, that is why I'm here.
I've been making software for 15+ years, it is still one of my favorite hobbies. Really hope contributing to this language and the ecosystem, thanks!

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dylangtech profile image
Dylan Green • Edited

I was joining looking for an inclusive community around a nice new programming language, only to find that this community promotes and allowed racism, sexism, and cisphobia if it's directed at someone "non-marginalized". This is a very bad policy that creates hostile environments. If you're saying that the comfort of "reverse"-ists are more important than my safety, than you are not following your own rules. I accept the code of conduct, EXCEPT for this part. I will criticize it where I see it. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. A very racist/sexist/cisphobic Code of Conduct policy

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bluesolei profile image
Shaul Fridman • Edited

Wow, what a wrong way to see the world, as if racism can only be directed at some people. If you are only against some racism, you are not against racism; you are just against (some other) people ('s race).
Thanks, Dylan, for pointing out this horrible passage.

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deltomix profile image
DelTomix

Hello All!
Great to discover this place and thanks Loris for creating it!
Coming from a mostly C and Linux background, I'm just in my early stages with Zig. After a heavy period of research I'm finally confident to say this is the first time in.. decades? that I've been excited to jump deep into a new language. Given the pre-1.0 phase its great to have these bits of light and context everyone is sharing here - so thanks to all the contributors! I hope that someday soon I'll be able to help contribute back!
Cheers!

  • Tom
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zigster64 profile image
Scribe of the Ziggurat

Great idea Loris - I think (once again), you have perfectly read the mood of a lot of devs, and put this up right at the right time.

Thank you

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kristoff profile image
Loris Cro

Thanks!

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gw1 profile image
g-w1

Hello World!

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chrboesch profile image
Chris Boesch

Hello everyone, now I'm also registered.