I think you are operating from a mistaken understanding, as responded to in the linked comment.
> Question: "So after this change, is there way I can still simply call zig run or do I have to use a build.zig file?"
Andrew's answer: "No, this use case will regress."
This in fact literally states that "just" calling "zig run" won't be possible anymore, and heavily implies you'll need a build.zig file.
> This in fact literally states that "just" calling "zig run" won't be possible anymore,
This seems correct.
> and heavily implies you'll need a build.zig file.
This seems to not be the case.
No, I’m not. Respectfully, you’re responding to my point while admitting in your comment [0] that you don’t actually know.
If you read the relevant discussions, the conclusion, last time I checked, was that there’s going to be a build system requirement.
You’re making a lot of “assumptions” when you could just read the GitHub issue regarding this change, written by Andrew himself, titled “move @cImport to the build system” [0].
By the way, please note that I not only write Zig code almost daily, I’ve personally contributed to the Zig build system.