What Zig felt like, coming from Rust
- ID
- 26513
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 19 Sep 2026, 9:55 PM
- Fetched
- 21 Sep 2026, 8:53 PM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://besok.github.io/posts/what-zig-felt-like-coming-from-rust/
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 5.5
- Created
- 21 Sep 2026, 9:59 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developers
What happened
A developer with 7 years of Rust experience reimplemented a JSONPath library (RFC 9535) in Zig after building the Rust version (jsonpath-rust). The most surprising takeaway wasn't language semantics but tooling: Zig's near-total lack of IDE support forced a return to CLI-based workflows, and the author ended up switching from JetBrains IDEs to a helix + alacritty + zellij setup, finding build.zig's test runner genuinely pleasant once accepted.
Why it matters
If you're evaluating Zig for a real project, budget for a steeper IDE/tooling adjustment than the language itself — the author's experience suggests build.zig is solid but you'll likely be working without rich IDE features. For Rust devs curious about Zig, the practical entry point is porting an existing small library you already understand, which isolates language learning from domain learning.
Discussion angle
Is the lack of IDE support in Zig a real adoption blocker for teams, or does it self-select for developers who'll be more productive in the language anyway?