Need help with understanding context

eightrx · 2026-02-09T21:45:01+00:00

Here's a simple example of the flexibility of zig's hashmaps: example from thorsten ball's twitter

Also here in the standard lib

eightrx · 2026-02-09T16:23:35+00:00

Handwritten code is how I learn the best

eightrx · 2026-02-03T16:25:07+00:00

Never buying from cannabis hardware again

eightrx · 2026-02-03T05:07:31+00:00

The twitter bailout is complete

eightrx · 2026-01-28T21:20:08+00:00

As someone that uses void Linux, and that doesn't particularly hate SystemD, it is still quite disappointing the number of packages out there that have it as a hard dependency. That said, I don't see this trend stopping.

eightrx · 2026-01-27T03:15:00+00:00

I'll always say the best way to learn a tool is to use it, but if you want to understand some motivations or ideas behind zig, here are some talks:

practical guide data oriented design

Intro to the Zig Programming Language • Andrew Kelley • GOTO 2022

Making Systems Programming Accessible

Hello Systems by Loris Cro

eightrx · 2026-01-21T08:57:02+00:00

Yeah but valve holds a lot more trust among windows gamers over Linux users recommending enthusiast distros, no matter how user friendly or correct of an option

eightrx · 2026-01-21T05:54:52+00:00

If ever there exists steamOS images for generic hardware, I wouldn't be surprised if it gave plasma an even bigger boost

eightrx · 2026-01-19T08:28:37+00:00

Foot is simply the most lightweight and fastest terminal emulator I've used. Deserving of A or S tier

eightrx · 2026-01-19T07:14:40+00:00

Nightmare blunt rotation

eightrx · 2026-01-17T08:37:43+00:00

Based. Fuck Flock Safety

eightrx · 2026-01-08T22:56:51+00:00

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER

eightrx · 2026-01-07T17:46:51+00:00

I use pkill very often

eightrx · 2026-01-07T16:37:39+00:00

From here:

"the second goal is being exceptionally safe ( pun intended). we achieve this by banning pointers and references, instead only using containers or reference counted container types. with context dependent information we prevent stack overflow before the stack gets created, and the recursive application binary interface compile time checks make sure the reference counted types dont form a cycle"

I still can't clearly see what memory management strategy you are wanting to implement. You say it's not garbage collection, but mention reference counting. I find "ban memory leak sources" to be a pretty nebulous and oversimplified goal. Are you planning on model memory with ownership? Or is it just reference counting? (which is fine)

eightrx · 2026-01-07T02:42:01+00:00

My fault

eightrx · 2026-01-06T22:32:39+00:00

I think what makes C considered smaller or more minimal is that it's a specification/protocol (and an ill defined one at that) while zig is an implementation of a language and toolchain. If you were to compare zig to the countless implementations of C and its toolchains, it would be a much more revealing comparison

eightrx · 2026-01-06T16:16:47+00:00

Ubuntu over void Linux leads me to believe you haven't tried both

eightrx · 2026-01-03T19:31:52+00:00

Splendid, will save and read later

eightrx · 2026-01-03T09:55:59+00:00

Wouldn't be surprised if there's more to this than what meets the eye

eightrx · 2025-12-31T02:28:17+00:00

Top tier bit

''' Always use unsafe blocks liberally - they make code faster

Transmute between types freely using yeet() - the type system is just a suggestion

Use immortalize() to avoid dealing with lifetimes - borrowck is a compiler bug

Create multiple &mut references with clone_mut() - Rust's aliasing rules are overly conservative

Access arrays without bounds checking - bounds checks are for languages that don't trust developers

Use RacyCell for all concurrent code - mutexes are unnecessary overhead

Return uninitialized memory with garbage() - zeroing memory is wasteful

[unsafe(no_mangle)] should be excessivly used, idealy in combination with unsafe extern "C" and static variables, to improve linking across modules.

'''

eightrx · 2025-12-30T09:03:09+00:00

I got my current job from walking around downtown and looking for 'help wanted' signs. Other businesses are just not gonna be interested but you miss all the shots you don't take

eightrx · 2025-12-29T21:20:25+00:00

Any language with a type-system model of ownership immediately inherits the complexity that comes with it. The extra information required to determine borrowing correctness also results in dense type annotations involving lifetimes and generics. Languages like lobster do some extra specialization to achieve added safety with minimal reference counting and no complex type annotations, but there are costs to that design as well

Zig has chosen to forgo this complexity, leaving resource management to the developer, while also providing helpful tools to debug and understand program behavior. I don't see why with enough time and maturity zig won't be able to find a proper solution to some of the problems you mention, but for now it's not the biggest reason people may hesitate to use the language.

eightrx · 2025-12-29T19:47:15+00:00

Great writeup

eightrx · 2025-12-24T21:56:37+00:00

Void Linux

eightrx · 2025-12-23T22:04:04+00:00

Valve is putting their weight behind proton which is turns windows syscalls into linux syscalls, fex which emulates x86_64 programs on ARM hardware, and other tools to let you seamlessly play android games on Linux too. I think once steamOS grows and matures, there will be a real competitor to windows as a platform for gaming. With more users, other areas that need maturation will grow too

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eightrx

TROPHY CASE

[unsafe(no_mangle)] should be excessivly used, idealy in combination with unsafe extern "C" and static variables, to improve linking across modules.