The killer feature (IMO) is automatic conversion of C code to Zig code (transpiling). E.g. take a C project, convert it all to Zig, and even if you don't transpile, you still get really nice compat (include C headers just like a normal input without converting). Getting a medium sized C project converted to Zig in 1 day or 1 week, then incrementally improving from there, is really enticing IMO especially considering the alternative of rewriting in Rust could be months of very hard conversion work. Transpiling isn't perfect but it seems to be a 97% soltuion.

The second advantage seems to be easy unsafe work.

BTW I don't really use Zig, and I still prefer Rust, but those are the reasons I think it has a niche of its own. Does rust already fill this space? Yeah kinda, but that's why I'd call in a niche

comptime is a huge killer feature for me. I used it to generate ARM lookup tables at compile time and it's amazing, it also removes the need for generics as types are just arguments
for example the Vec function accepts a type as and returns a struct that can hold arbitrary amounts of said type on the heap.
I eventually switched to rust + proc macros tho (zig solution was MUCH cleaner!) because both ZLS and the Zig compiler are terrible and still needs a lot of work.

Yeah my thinking as well.

Addtionally, why I think other system language competitors like Zig or Nim aren't succeeding long-term, is because of fast growth and already big ecosystem of Rust. Zig may be better though for some use-cases (when you want to avoid all the mental overhead, and the application stays simple).

I think the main advantages over C are:

• better tooling
• modern syntax
• by default, pointers must be non-null. You have to specify if you want to use null pointers
• better exception handling using the functional style of exceptions-as-values

There are probably more, but those are the ones I remember.

The killer feature (IMO) is automatic conversion of C code to Zig code (transpiling). E.g. take a C project, convert it all to Zig, and even if you don't transpile, you still get really nice compat (include C headers just like a normal input without converting). Getting a medium sized C project converted to Zig in 1 day or 1 week, then incrementally improving from there, is really enticing IMO especially considering the alternative of rewriting in Rust could be months of very hard conversion work. Transpiling isn't perfect but it seems to be a 97% soltuion.

The second advantage seems to be easy unsafe work.

BTW I don't really use Zig, and I still prefer Rust, but those are the reasons I think it has a niche of its own.

It competes with C, so in 2023 this basically means embedded systems. It offers executable size of few KB and out-of-the-box cross-platform compilation. It's a modern C, basically, and it claims to be even faster than C as some language rules allow more optimizations

This talk is technically not about Zig, but he still shows many of Zig's strengts: https://youtu.be/aPWFLkHRIAQ?si=b-rf_oMremovedIvAdq

To me, Zig is a language that tries to be like C, but with all the decades of mistakes removed, or rather with modern knowledge of good language design in mind, while keeping as much compatibility as possible, as to not require a lot of work for the transition as Rust did. Thus, if you're working in a C codebase, you'll be good to go to integrate Zig in as little as an hour. They also have by far the cleanest solution to macros and generics that I have seen yet (although I miss my type classes).

zig's biggest feature is comptime. completely removes need for generics as types exist as first class at compile time. also all functions can run at comlile time. no exceptions.
for example the Vec function accepts a type as and returns a struct that can hold arbitrary amounts of said type on the heap.

I also prefer Rust, but I saw a pretty good argument for Zig (and actually a pretty big hole/problem with Rust) when it comes to unsafe stuff. The title of this is clickbait but the content is really good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbQVR4v5PZw

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=wxx5_Xaw7zU

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Sadly, it also suffers the same problems Nim suffers: dearth of libraries.

That might change once the language stabilizes. Imagine creating a library now and the language changes breaking it.

would transpilation of C libraries help with the lack of libraries however?