When and why would you use Zig instead of Rust and vice versa?

Rust
Zig

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Added the Zig portal :nerd_face:

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Zig - Manual Memory Management:

In order to accomplish this, Zig programmers must manage their own memory, and must handle memory allocation failure.

I am not an expert at all in compiled languages, but from the above line in their docs seems to be one of the main reasons to not use it instead of using Rust, at least in my point of view :wink:

I say this because more then 50% of the bugs in C related stuff comes from memory management, and if I am not in mistake the cause of very dangerous exploits.

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Zig mostly aims to be a C replacement, whereas Rust aims to displace C++.

However, lately Zig’s author started investing in ergonomics and compatibility more – his article on making the Zig compiler integrate with C compilers and using Zig’s unified CLI commands and switches to interact with those legacy C compilers is excellent – so I am not sure what’s his future direction.

I don’t want to fanboy for Rust but it has a very dedicated and hardcore community and it’s IMO only a matter of time before it eats part of C’s lunch (and thus Zig’s),

Not saying Zig is doomed – I liked its demos a lot and the author is extremely talented.

But between Rust being better and better every month and reaching for more and more areas – parts of the embedded / strongly constrained environments included – I am not sure if Zig won’t remain a niche language whose main selling point would be “I am a better C for microcontrollers”.

Could be wrong though – I am simply sharing what I’ve gathered all over the net and through my own experience. Take it with a bag of salt.

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