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Comment by agapon | Hacker News Reader

I mean, is this C-like?

  fn add(a: i32, b: i32) i32 {
      return a + b;
  }

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Yes: https://godbolt.org/z/72Dvpe

Simple stuff like this looks very similar to Rust: https://godbolt.org/z/spkKai

Rust quickly becomes harder though, while Zig is much easier to grasp.

The fact that they compile to the same assembly instruction does not make them similar source code.

The languages are similar enough that the Zig tool-chain can translate C source into Zig source. There's mostly a one-to-one correspondence.

It could hardly be more C-like. Are you getting distracted by the syntax?

When we talk about something being "C-like", the syntax is what we're talking about. Being "distracted by the syntax" doesn't make sense when the syntax is the entire point of the statement being made.

When "we" talk? I suggest that in the future if you mean syntactically similar you say syntactically similar.

But then, of course, it wouldn't have much to do with Zig's "appeal as better C than C", which prompted this whole discussion.

Admittedly it's been decades since I've done any C (literally since 1999, except for an LD_PRELOAD shim I wrote about 5 years ago) but being someone who prefers C and other ALGOL-syntax derivates I find the syntax to be relatively easy to grok. One advantage over C is that the confusing pointer/array/function pointer thing has a well-defined order in Zig, there's no "spiral order" nonsense going on.

There is no spiral. C's pointer declaration syntax is arguably backwards ("declaration follows usage") but fundamentally follows normal precedence rules. The so-called spiral is total nonsense misinformation.

What about this do you find disagreeable? http://c-faq.com/decl/spiral.anderson.html

The fact that it's wrong if you try to generalize it beyond the examples given?

Does it? Here's one that I grabbed from cdecl.org:

  char * const (*(* const bar)[5])(int )

And its translation:

  declare bar as const pointer to array 5 of pointer to function (int) returning const pointer to char

This seems like what I'd get from the spiral technique.

The spiral rule works if "pointer to" and "function returning"/"array of" alternate but it breaks if they don't, i.e., if you have arrays of arrays or pointers to pointers.

    int** arr1_of_arr2_of_arr3_of_ptr_to_ptr_to_int[1][2][3]

In this case, spiraling between [1], ×, [2], ×, [3], int is obviously wrong, the correct reading order is [1], [2], [3], ×, ×, int. (Edit: read × = *)

The Right-Left Rule is quoted less frequently on HN but it's a correct algorithm for deciphering C types: http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~ricko/rt_lt.rule.html

I would name that algorithm "inside-out" instead of "right-left" if my understanding of its behavior is correct.

Aren't you supposed to treat multiple array or pointers as a group?

That's exactly my point. It's confusing enough that someone e made a bullshit claim that was totally wrong and confused noobs for years. That won't happen with zig.

That won't happen with any sane systems language all the way back to Algol dialects.

The only thing that C has taken from Algol, was structured control and data.

They are both close-to-the-metal, few-abstractions, procedural, imperative Systems programming languages with explicit memory management and layout.

Exactly. I would appreciate an explanation what makes zig c-like if its syntax is nothing like c? What does "c-like" even mean then?

It's about 50% C-like. Which is giving people a That Dress experience answering yes or no to the question.

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