5 ms·

I would say the flagship Zig project is TigerBeetle, not Bun.

rasmus1610 2mo ago
some may argue for ghostty but yeah :)
eatonphil 2mo ago
If TigerBeetle is the Zig flagship then Zig is untenable for almost any team, because Tiger Style is untenable for almost any team. No, I think that Tiger Style makes Zig mostly unimportant. On the other hand, as a corporate backer for Zig, TigerBeetle is definitely a big deal. But in terms of exemplary and imitable projects in the ecosystem I would think something like Ghostty is the safer label for "flagship".
- GuB-42 2mo ago
  TigerBeetle is interesting because even though something like TigerStyle is unusual for a database, it is very much at home for embedded systems. In fact we could summarize TigerBeetle as "the financial database developed like embedded software". Determinism is a cornerstone of critical software like in avionics, and naturally, dynamic allocation is forbidden, as in TigerStyle. So even though it is not obvious, TigerBeetle represents one of Zig biggest strengths: embedded systems.
- z0ltan 2mo ago
  [dead]
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
fridder 2mo ago
or libghostty
Aurornis 2mo ago
TigerBeetle has a unique static memory allocation strategy at launch time. It’s a strategy that sidesteps a lot of memory management issues but only works for very specific use cases. Their success with this strategy isn’t portable to most other projects. I think they really need more traditional flagship projects that generalize to typical memory management use cases. The way the conversation keeps coming back to TigerBeetle as a success story isn’t helpful to anyone trying to evaluate the memory management angle.
- wavemode 2mo ago
  I would say the exact opposite, actually - Zig is a language specifically suited for TigerBeetle's all-at-once approach to memory management, and the approach more commonly used in Rust (allocate wherever and whenever) is non-idiomatic in Zig. > only works for very specific use cases. It's not clear to me what you mean by this.
  - Aurornis 2mo ago
    > It's not clear to me what you mean by this. TigerBeetle calculates all the memory it needs at startup. It allocates that much memory once. It does not allocate memory dynamically. This only works for very specific use cases, like a fixed server size where you know exactly how much memory you want to allocate to a process. It’s not portable to general purpose computing, where it’s expected that apps aren’t allocating the maximum amount of memory they might use at startup. Their memory usage grows and shrinks as you open and close files or as your documents get longer. > and the approach more commonly used in Rust (allocate wherever and whenever) is non-idiomatic in Zig Allocating memory as needed isn’t a Rust-specific idiom. Most programming involves dynamic memory allocation. I don’t think the Zig developers would go as far as saying Zig isn’t a good fit for dynamic memory allocation. If it was that simple this entire debacle could have been written off as “Bun requires dynamic memory allocation by nature, therefore Zig isn’t a good fit”. That’s not what Andrew Kelley is trying to say though.
    - wavemode 2mo ago
      > This only works for very specific use cases, like a fixed server size where you know exactly how much memory you want to allocate to a process. So, like, the JVM with its "initial heap size" setting? After reserving that space from the OS on startup, pieces of the space are then handed out by the JVM's internal allocator, where and when needed. If initial heap size and max heap size are the same, that initial one is the only malloc() call that ever happens. Not as common for desktop software, but a common best practice when deploying JVM applications to servers. (I think we're perhaps tripping over two different meanings of "allocate" - you can "allocate" in the sense of calling malloc(), and you can "allocate" a piece of that reserved memory to a particular scope/function/object without actually calling malloc.) > Allocating memory as needed isn’t a Rust-specific idiom. I never said that.
pjmlp 2mo ago
TigerBeetle is hardly a product to drive Zig adoption.

some may argue for ghostty but yeah :)

If TigerBeetle is the Zig flagship then Zig is untenable for almost any team, because Tiger Style is untenable for almost any team. No, I think that Tiger Style makes Zig mostly unimportant. On the other hand, as a corporate backer for Zig, TigerBeetle is definitely a big deal. But in terms of exemplary and imitable projects in the ecosystem I would think something like Ghostty is the safer label for "flagship".

GuB-42 2mo ago
TigerBeetle is interesting because even though something like TigerStyle is unusual for a database, it is very much at home for embedded systems. In fact we could summarize TigerBeetle as "the financial database developed like embedded software". Determinism is a cornerstone of critical software like in avionics, and naturally, dynamic allocation is forbidden, as in TigerStyle. So even though it is not obvious, TigerBeetle represents one of Zig biggest strengths: embedded systems.
z0ltan 2mo ago
[dead]
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

fridder 2mo ago

or libghostty

Aurornis 2mo ago

TigerBeetle has a unique static memory allocation strategy at launch time. It’s a strategy that sidesteps a lot of memory management issues but only works for very specific use cases. Their success with this strategy isn’t portable to most other projects. I think they really need more traditional flagship projects that generalize to typical memory management use cases. The way the conversation keeps coming back to TigerBeetle as a success story isn’t helpful to anyone trying to evaluate the memory management angle.

wavemode 2mo ago
I would say the exact opposite, actually - Zig is a language specifically suited for TigerBeetle's all-at-once approach to memory management, and the approach more commonly used in Rust (allocate wherever and whenever) is non-idiomatic in Zig. > only works for very specific use cases. It's not clear to me what you mean by this.
- Aurornis 2mo ago
  > It's not clear to me what you mean by this. TigerBeetle calculates all the memory it needs at startup. It allocates that much memory once. It does not allocate memory dynamically. This only works for very specific use cases, like a fixed server size where you know exactly how much memory you want to allocate to a process. It’s not portable to general purpose computing, where it’s expected that apps aren’t allocating the maximum amount of memory they might use at startup. Their memory usage grows and shrinks as you open and close files or as your documents get longer. > and the approach more commonly used in Rust (allocate wherever and whenever) is non-idiomatic in Zig Allocating memory as needed isn’t a Rust-specific idiom. Most programming involves dynamic memory allocation. I don’t think the Zig developers would go as far as saying Zig isn’t a good fit for dynamic memory allocation. If it was that simple this entire debacle could have been written off as “Bun requires dynamic memory allocation by nature, therefore Zig isn’t a good fit”. That’s not what Andrew Kelley is trying to say though.
  - wavemode 2mo ago
    > This only works for very specific use cases, like a fixed server size where you know exactly how much memory you want to allocate to a process. So, like, the JVM with its "initial heap size" setting? After reserving that space from the OS on startup, pieces of the space are then handed out by the JVM's internal allocator, where and when needed. If initial heap size and max heap size are the same, that initial one is the only malloc() call that ever happens. Not as common for desktop software, but a common best practice when deploying JVM applications to servers. (I think we're perhaps tripping over two different meanings of "allocate" - you can "allocate" in the sense of calling malloc(), and you can "allocate" a piece of that reserved memory to a particular scope/function/object without actually calling malloc.) > Allocating memory as needed isn’t a Rust-specific idiom. I never said that.

pjmlp 2mo ago

TigerBeetle is hardly a product to drive Zig adoption.