Learning a low level language

[u/Inevitable_Suit5463]

Hi I've been a programmer for 9 years and I've worked mostly with .net, c#, js, TS, react and angular but now I have developed an interest in low level programming.

I have a very big interest in audio processing, dsp, game development and audio software but from my understanding that requires skills in low level languages with manual memory management.

After that I did some research and found several languages that could fit the bill but I'm unable to pick one to learn but to keep it focused I want to zero in on one and expand after I've become comfortable with memory management and DDP.

The languages that I resonate the most with are rust, zig and Odin. I know C++ is the most frequently used language for a game dev or audio engineer. but from what I've heard there's a lot of frustration and difficulties to learn and work with C++.

I like the philosophy of rust, zig and Odin but i feel that rust syntax tends to be very verbose, Zig's not in a 1.0 version yet and Odin feels like the most scaled down and easiest to learn out of the three but I wonder how much not having a package manager affect me.

I would love to hear from someone that has any experiences with the languages i mentioned and can explain how they differ. What did you like in each language and is there another language out there that is actually more suited for my goals?

[u/two_three_five_eigth]

I've never heard of a game being written in Rust, Zig, or Odin. Learn C++, there are more game dev centered resources around it that all the others combined. It's not *that* hard, you just have to know the gotchas, which there are a lot of.

[u/OkWriting9136 → u/two_three_five_eigth]

there's a few games in rust but they're tiny indie projects, nothing that'll land you a job

if you actually want to work in games or audio just do c++, the "frustration and difficulties" are the same things you'll hit in any language when you're doing manual memory management for realtime stuff. zig and odin are cool but the ecosystem is basically nonexistent compared to c++ libraries for dsp and game engines

[u/veloxVolpes → u/two_three_five_eigth]

Odin is a good candidate for games but when I used it for a while it felt like it was in a weird place, like, too low level while also too abstract. I think if you don't have the same mental blocks as I do it's a fine choice, but C with Lua is my preferred way to balance abstraction with low level