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A comment on Zig Devlog: Self-Hosted x86 Back End Is Now Default in Debug Mode. Parent comment

Re:Zig Devlog: Self-Hosted x86 Back End Is Now Default in De... by AndyKelley on Monday June 09, 2025 @03:33AM (#44222212)
Fair enough, and yeah I hear you on the compilation cost of all the targets. We don't have aarch64 yet but in addition to x86_64 we do have an LLVM backend, a C backend, a SPIR-V backend, WebAssembly backend, RISC-V backend, and sparc backend. All that plus the stuff I mentioned earlier in 15s on a modern laptop.
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Re:Zig Devlog: Self-Hosted x86 Back End Is Now Default in De... by WalterBright on Monday June 09, 2025 @03:54PM (#44228713)
I considered a C backend at one time, but C is not expressive enough. The generated code would be ugly. For example, exception handling. D's heavy reliance on common blocks in the object code is another issue. C doesn't support nested functions (static links). And so on.

Never found a user who asked for that, either :-/

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Re:Zig Devlog: Self-Hosted x86 Back End Is Now Default in De... by steveklabnik on Monday June 09, 2025 @04:45PM (#44229287)
Some users want a C backend, not for maintainability reasons, but for the ability to compile on platforms that have nothing but a C compiler. The maintainability or aesthetics of the C is irrelevant, it's like another intermediate representation.
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Re:Zig Devlog: Self-Hosted x86 Back End Is Now Default in De... by WalterBright on Monday June 09, 2025 @07:19PM (#44230699)
I bet it would be easier to write a code gen for such platforms than to wrassal generated C code and work around the endless problems.

Anyhow, one of the curious features of D is its ability to translate C code to D code. Curious as it was never intentionally designed, it was discovered by one of our users.

D has the ability to create a .di file from a .d file, which is analogous to writing a .h file from a .c file. When D gained the ability to compile C files, you just ask it to create a .di file, and voila! the C code translated to D!

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Re:Zig Devlog: Self-Hosted x86 Back End Is Now Default in De... by steveklabnik on Monday June 09, 2025 @10:22PM (#44231825)
Maybe, I don’t use those platforms and so I don’t know from experience, I just know that’s why people asked us in Rust.

I somehow missed that D has that! I try to read the forums now and again, but I should keep more active tabs on how stuff is going :)

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Re:Zig Devlog: Self-Hosted x86 Back End Is Now Default in De... by AndyKelley on Monday June 09, 2025 @05:22PM (#44229666)
Can confirm, Zig's generated C is extremely ugly. We literally treat it as an object format [1].

The MSVC limitations are maddening, from how short string literals must be, to the complete lack of inline assembly when targeting x86_64.

[1]: https://ziglang.org/documentation/0.14.1/std/#std.Target.Obj...

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