<aside> 💡 In the long dark of Winter 2024, I went down a programming rabbit hole. It wasn’t at optimal mental health, I don’t think this particularly helped, but I learned a lot.
This is the story of one programmer Quietly Going Insane With Tools & Automation:
Quietly Going Insane With Tools & Automation
Strings, Actually, Do Not Exist
Suffering: The First Two Weeks Of Zig
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In interviews, I usually joke that I'm equally bad coding in all languages.
It sometimes lands.
Most languages are pretty easy to grok.
Once you learn one loosely typed language, the others are just syntactic differences and particular idiosyncrasies with the language/dev ecosystem.
Same is true for strongly typed languages, C# and Java are actually the same.
It was this line of thinking where I thought writing a thing in Zig would be fast, and good for a laugh.
It has been good for a laugh.
It has not been fast.
<aside> 🔑 The mistake I made was equating higher level languages with lower level ones. Learning each “level” the first time is the hard part.
Learning a loosely typed language like JS the first time is hard. Learning a strongly typed language like Java the first time is hard. Learning a memory constrained language like C the first time is hard.
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So the jokes on me, because I’m too stubborn to give up on learning Zig for the lulz, which means going through the painful process of learning memory management for the first time.
Some of that means teaching myself CompSci 101 level concepts like Strings, Actually, Do Not Exist
Courses not required to get my certificate in “Game Art & Design” from a for-profit college over 15 years ago.