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Comment by PufPufPuf | Hacker News Reader

The inclusion of Vlang is interesting. I remember that it was created together with Volt, a multi-service messenger app that never delivered. Is the language any good, and are there any advantages over more established esoteric systems languages like D, Nim, or Zig?

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From a pure language perspective, not taking into account infrastructure and implementation, Vlang is currently my favorite language. It has pretty much the syntax and semantics I want in a statically compiled, strongly typed language. However, there are still too many features of the current implementations that are in reality not yet implemented or too experimental. It's still not ready for production and larger projects.

I'd say the languages you mention are substitutes according to the following mapping:

    C++    => D
    Python => Nim
    C      => Zig
    Go     => V

V promised a lot of stuff as ready but has undelivered most of them and people lost trust. If V was truthful like Zig, it would be able to create a foundation. Also a programming language will never be able to substitute another one if it is not able to call its vast number of libraries.

I agree, the table refers to the intention of the language developers and how the languages feel, it's not about real substitution. For example, D was explicitly designed as a better version of C++ and also allows you to use C++ libraries directly, and Zig is explicitly intended as a modern substitute for C.

As for V, it delivers quite well for a language at such an early stage and has a growing community. IMHO, it's a great language.

Still would not use V myself, its the prime example of overmarketing of impossible features, silencing of critics online etc

Since you are comparing Zig with V:

> V promised a lot of stuff as ready but has undelivered most of them

This is wrong. V has an online playground, a package manager, hot code reloading and a REPL whereas Zig doesn't even though Zig is twice as old.

> If V was truthful like Zig, it would be able to create a foundation

Raising money doesn't lead to adoption, though. By this logic, C isn't truthful either since it doesn't have a foundation.

> Also a programming language will never be able to substitute another one if it is not able to call its vast number of libraries

How is this relevant? Both Zig and V can call C code and leverage C's ecosystem of libraries.

This comment started a hellish flamewar. Please don't start programming language flamewars on HN. Last thing we need here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

D and Nim are great mature languages. If you think they're suitable for the domain you're working on and reach out for either of them, you're not gonna go wrong. They have large communities and you'll easily find answers to your questions.

I wouldn't call Zig established, though. Zig's compiler still crashes on valid code and compared to V it still doesn't have an online playground, a package manager, hot code reloading, a REPL, etc. even though it's twice as old.

V's syntax is similar to Go. However under the hood V differs from Go. For example:

- V has compile-time memory management similar to the Lobster programming language.

- V has zero-cost interoperability with C.

Check it out and decide for yourself. If you already know Go, you can learn V in an afternoon.

Nim is very fast but also very expressive. Think of a compiled Python, but with Rust-like safety.

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