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Add to SafariWhen comparing Guile vs Zig, the Slant community recommends Guile for most people. In the question“What are the best general-purpose programming languages?” Guile is ranked 6th while Zig is ranked 25th. The most important reason people chose Guile is:
Chances are a system running enough GNU software will already have it installed.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro GNU's official extension language
Chances are a system running enough GNU software will already have it installed.
Pro Easy to customize and extend applications
Guile makes it easy for users of your application to write extensions without needing to understand the plumbing of your program.
Pro Excellent documentation
The documentation provides conceptual overviews, tutorials, and a detailed reference for all commands, functions, and operators.
Pro C Interop
Zig programs can import C libraries and export header files to be used in C programs.
Pro Compile-time execution
Zig can execute code at compile-time, allowing for more performant and readable programs.
Pro Cross-compilation is easy
The Zig compiler can build artifacts for any Tier 3 Supported platform without additional downloads.
Pro Performance
Zig is pretty fast, in some cases even faster than C.
Pro Control flow is simple and obvious
No operator overloading, property methods, runtime dispatch, macros, etc.
Pro Small binary
Produces binary smaller than C.
Pro Some safety
It's safer than C, at least.
Pro No Hidden Control flow
Zig will not do anything on your back that might slow down your program & make you loose your control over your program.
Cons
Con Weak copyleft
LGPL
Con Convoluted syntax
Claims to be an improvement over C, but in this area, not really.
Con No closures
Does not have closures.
Con No lambdas
Missing many key and useful features other languages have.
Con Deceptively gives impression it's near being production ready
No plans to hit 1.0 until 2025 (3 years later), according to Zig Roadmap speech. Impression is given that (0.9.1) language was close to ready, when it's not.
Con Creator admits to not knowing what he's doing
Creator admits his shortcomings during Zig Roadmap speech. Very disturbing. Not a language to invest in or take seriously, outside personal experimentation.
Con Almost no community
Lacking in libraries and users.
Con No interfaces/traits
Features that are useful are missing, where you can find them in other languages.
Con Exhibits cult-like behavior and animosity towards other programming languages
Strange culture that bashes other languages and are not open to criticism about the faults of their language. Very close-minded, sometimes scary.
Con Fundraising looks suspicious
Why do we keep seeing an overhyped unfinished alpha level language showing up everywhere? That answer looks like a financial incentive to promote the language, the Zig Software Foundation, that is making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from donations. To aggressively maintain cash flow, it appears any opinions that goes against their narrative is suppressed, attacked, or eliminated. All while the hype machine runs rampant. That isn't a language for the people, that looks to be a cash grab for the few that will result in nothing useful. Save yourself the headache and games, better to just use C or other languages with C-like syntax, can interface with C, and are actually useful. Better to not waste your valuable time on crap like Zig, false media hype, or getting scammed.
”If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
This blog has published 2 excellent articles on how Zig's claims do not live up to reality after more than 6 years of development.
Con No standard package manager
Several years into development, and still no standard package manager is ridiculous.
Con Poor compiler errors
Several years into development, language still a mess, and no hope of fixing itself for yet more years later.
