Comment by giancarlostoro

3 days ago

Syntax aside, how does this compare to Nim? Nim does similar, I think Crystal does as well? Not entirely sure about Crystal tbh. I guess Nim and Vala, since I believe both transpile to C, so you really get "like C" output from both.

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giancarlostoro

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archargelod  3 days ago

From what I see, Zen-C aims to be "C with super-powers". It still uses C pointers for arrays and strings. It transpiles to single human-readable C file without symbol mangling. No safety. Not portable (yet?).

Nim is a full, independent modern language that uses C as one of its backends. It has its own runtime, optional GC, Unicode strings, bounds checking, and a huge stdlib. You write high-level Nim code and it spits out optimized C you usually don't touch.

Here’s a little comparison I put together from what I can find in the readme and code:

    Comparison          ZenC           Nim
    
    written in          C              Self-Hosted
    targets             C              C, C++, ObjC, JS, LLVM (via nlvm), Native (in-progress)
    platforms           POSIX          Linux, Windows, MacOS, POSIX, baremetal
    mm strategy         manual/RAII    ARC, ORC(ARC with cycle collector), multiple gc, manual
    generated code      human-readable optimized
    mangling            no             yes
    
    stdlib              bare           extensive/batteries-included
    
    compile-time code   yes            yes
    macros              comptime?      AST manipulation
    
    arrays              C arrays       type and size is retained at all times
    strings             C strings      have capacity and length, support Unicode
    bounds-checking     no             yes (optional)

baranul  2 days ago

Nim (Python-like) and Crystal (Ruby-like) are not C-like languages. Arguably, those languages are targeting a different audience. There are other C family and C style syntax languages that compile directly to C or has it as one of its backends.

jdc0589  3 days ago

man I haven't heard anything about Vala in ages. is it still actively developed/used? how is it?

  • spookie  3 days ago

    Yes, it is actively being developed.

    Quite easy to make apps with it and GNOME Builder makes it really easy to package it for distribution (creates a proper flatpak environment, no need to make all the boilerplate). It's quite nice to work with, and make stuff happen. Gtk docs and awful deprecation culture (deprecate functions without any real alternative) are still a PITA though.

  • giancarlostoro  2 days ago

    There's a surprising number of GUI apps built using Vala, if you've used Linux long enough, there's a chance you may have used a Vala based GUI and not even known you were. It's just such a nice language, it's a shame it's not more prevalent since Gnome libraries can compile basically anywhere.

  • deaddodo  3 days ago

    Vala is still being developed and used in the GNOME ecosystem. Boo, on the other hand, is pretty dead.

bloovis  3 days ago

Crystal compiles directly to object code, using LLVM. It does provide the ability to interoperate with C code; as an example, I use this feature to call ncursesw functions from Crystal.

lgunsch  3 days ago

I was also going to mention this reminds me of Vala, which I haven't seen or heard from in 10+ years.

  • giancarlostoro  3 days ago

    Surprisingly theres a shocking number of GUI programs for Linux made with Vala, and ElementaryOS is built using Vala, and all their custom software uses Vala. So it's not dead, just a little known interesting language. :)