Hacker News Reader

If you write a modern style of C, you can have bounds checked code and do not need to use void pointers. I usually find that people overestimate the advantages of newer languages compared to using C by comparing to old and badly written C.

View on HN

GP: "you are responsible for everything"

AKA You are responsible for opting into "modern C". In order to be unsafe in zig (in the dimensions I mentioned) you must opt out.

You would need to opt-in into zig first, which is more effort than opting into modern C when you come from C.

i suggest you show this thread to a neutral third party and ask them if your line of argument makes sense.

Considering that basically nobody uses Zig, I think most neutral third-parties seem to agree.

I used Zig for my projects for a while, but moved back to C for similar reasons. C23, with gcc extensions, and using MISRA-like coding style where it makes sense, provides a similar experience to Zig but with seamless C interop. You dont have comptime, but my biggest lesson from my time in Zig is that I usually want to pass a vtable instead of monomophizing over input types.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com