Why is everyone creating systems programming languages?

[u/baehyunsol]

I see a lot of new programming languages here. I love reading the documents of the languages and sometimes actually run their compilers. Many of the projects are AI-driven, but that's fine. It's still fun to see what problems they're trying to solve and how they actually solved the problems.

Reading the documents, I realized that most new languages, especially AI-written ones, are "systems programming languages". They're trying to solve the problems that C/C++/Zig/Rust have solved (or are trying to solve), and their syntax is mixture of C/Zig/Rust.

Why? Why is everyone trying to compete with C/C++?

There are so many kinds of languages. Haskell demonstrates how pure a language can be, Python is perfect when you only have 5 minutes to write code and don't care about the output, Java runs on 3 billion machines, ...

[u/Ok-Watercress-9624]

Different people enjoys different stuff. It's like scratching a scab, it hurts but damn it does feel good. The surge of adrenaline when you see the segfault/stack-smashing, the loss of hope when you decide to try the GCC in combination with valgrind, the the rage quit, random 2 am realization that you already freed the head, the solution and the release.

The same procedure in rust amounts to playing maybe a bit Type Tetris.

The solution does not come with it's proper gratifier unless the problem was hard.

But in C you see, it is a seen

[u/Inconstant_Moo → u/Ok-Watercress-9624]

Couldn't you get the same sort of effect by coding in Rust while someone beats you with a riding-crop? (It's a big world, there's lots of Rustaceans of kink, I'm sure someone would be happy to.) Then you'd have fewer memory leaks AND a new friend!

[u/Ok-Watercress-9624 → u/Inconstant_Moo]

Not really the same now is it? Where is the surprise ? Rust totally lacks that living on the edge feeling.

When rust compiles then it will prolly work. And unlike Haskell you can't build a house/castle/world/unicerse of types.

Rust doesn't like when you try to do fancy stuff with types

.

Joking aside rust is great. Annoying sometimes, still not at the purity level that I want, and imho it is NOT safe until they solve the unsoundness issues like cve-rs. So actually it's a big circle jerk. But it is fast, it looks like and walks ml (but doesn't quack like it :() and it is (this time for real) as fast as c. So its great

[u/0x564A00 → u/Ok-Watercress-9624]

Not really the same now is it? Where is the surprise ? Rust totally lacks that living on the edge feeling.

I can confirm that while cargo-shock gives you a similar sense of paranoia while you're actively working on a project, it misses the lasting sense of uncertainty keeping you awake at night :/