lerno

The C backend is still experimental and far from ready for prime time, so it's not unexpected!

<> is the worst choice for generic syntax in a language with C-like syntax. It's not surprising that it was introduced by C++. It is very ambiguous.

Some short examples: `foo<1> * a` – is this `(foo < 1) > (a)` or `(foo<1>) a`? What about `foo<1>>2>a`? Is that `(foo<1> > 2) > a` or `foo<(1>>2)> a`?

Just horrid.

Or `cast{int*}(myage)`

It works visually poorly with things like `int*(ptr)` and `int[2]*(arr)` though.

The C3 temp allocator leans into this though. It’s not a frame allocator but acts like a stack allocator. It solves the ”oh, how do you make sure the data you got back is properly freed”. In Zig you need to create and free arenas by hand, which is not far from freeing the returned allocations by hand.

But I think C3 shows it can be taken further.

Zig, for better or worse, have a strong messaging and isn’t afraid of making big claims. That they don’t always pan out (”faster than C”, ”colorless async” etc), doesn’t matter. Zig was the first C alternative to spring from the interest Jon Blow ignited with his language dev and that marketing lead has been superbly well maintained by Andrew.

Odin and C3 has at least a magnitude fewer people knowing about them. More modest claims, less marketing potential.

So for D, it was to my memory never sold as a silver bullet either. A better C++ certainly, but with enough humility to not market itself as some game changer.

Compare Zig, V and Rust marketing with D’s and you’ll see what I mean.

I believe all examples are derived from C++ examples on its new reflection capabilities.

C3 has an even simpler way than Zig: `Color.RED.description`.

From what I can see the example started from C++, and then comparing how each language would look building it in userland instead.

Yes, lesson learned.

TLDR; people think that a "C-alternative" means "used for what C is used for today". But that's not what the C alternatives (except for Zig) try to achieve.