Re:Why Zig over C for Systems Programming
by bunderbunder on Friday November 13, 2026 @12:12PM
(#50486510)
But Zig is expressly not trying to bootstrap a completely new ecosystem. Integrating with - and depending on - existing C and C++ code is a core use case. So much so that they’ve adopted “maintain it with Zig” as a motto that intentionally puns on “rewrite it in Rust”.
Re:Why Zig over C for Systems Programming
by uecker on Friday November 13, 2026 @12:15PM
(#50486564)
I don't see why this requires not having dependencies.
Yes, new languages try to create a new ecosystem. I think this is a bad thing - we already have too many of such - often somewhat isolated - language ecosystems. But I also do not think we need new ecosystems, when we can evolve the existing one. I have seen C evolve quite a bit over time, so the idea that we have to create new ecosystems to solve problems is wrong in my opinion. C evolves very slowly, which means that some things need more time, but I also think that it is generally a very good thing that it evolves slowly.
Re:Why Zig over C for Systems Programming
by metaltyphoon on Friday November 13, 2026 @12:44PM
(#50487022)
> I also think that it is generally a very good thing that it evolves slowly
This is why new ecosystems starts. Not everyone is ok with the slow pace
As soon as you have dependencies you are dealing with however the authors decided to build things.
Part of why languages exist is just to get a new ecosystem.
At this point, you could fork C/C++, only remove features, give it a new name, a new package service, and maybe fork the standard library, and you could end up with something pretty competitive against Zig or Rust.