The more I use Rust the more I am convinced I can write high level performant code. I mean it's ridiculous that sometimes I forget I am writing Rust and not Scala!!
As someone who does a lot of low-level development, before Zig I didn't think any approach other than that of C or that of C++ was even possible. I don't know if Zig will fulfil its promise, but its radical design, that's unlike anything we've ever seen, sure offers a fresh perspective on things.
As to static guarantees -- they are never the point; they are a means to an end: writing more correct programs. That goal is just as valued by Zig as it is by Rust, Zig just tries to achieve it differently. Which achieves it better? It's hard to know right now. I have little doubt that Rust could make things that are today written in C++ safer, but I have serious doubts whether it would be adopted in truly safety-critical domains, where C is king. I think Zig could be.
I didn't know Zig can provide memory safety using it's features. If that's the case it's great, I need to try it out! Although I am sceptical about the claim that in truly safety-critical domains Rust would not be adopted where Zig would, but I am again out of my depth here, so :)
Yes, although this is done through runtime checks (that can be optionally disabled) rather than through static sound guarantees (Rust uses runtime checks in some cases, too). The language's simplicity and fast compilation helps with other types of correctness, too (i.e. beyond memory safety).
> Although I am sceptical about the claim that in truly safety-critical domains Rust would not be adopted where Zig would
I don't know if Zig would, but Rust has several problems for such domains that C and Zig don't: porting it is a challenge (both Rust itself and LLVM are very complex), understanding what a program does is a challenge (a lot of implicit behaviour), and handling allocation failures is a challenge.
Zig also has the same issue with LLVM until the language is fully bootstraped and the original LLVM based compiler no longer part of the build process.
However, packaging a C and C++ compiler alongside for the ride doesn't make it that much simpler.
That might not matter. Porting Rust might not be a simple undertaking, either.
> Zig also has the same issue with LLVM until the language is fully bootstraped and the original LLVM based compiler no longer part of the build process.
Yes, but that's expected to happen before 1.0.
> However, packaging a C and C++ compiler alongside for the ride doesn't make it that much simpler.
C isn't an issue at all; C++ is. I'm pretty sure it could be made optional.
Procedural macros are also somewhat insane in many ways.