Is Odin, "programming done right"? (with 'Ginger' Bill Hall)
Jan 10, 2024
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In this engaging discussion, Bill Hall, the creator of the Odin programming language, emphasizes his vision of "programming done right," aiming to refine C while integrating modern features. He shares insights on the defer statement's utility and contrasts Odin's design philosophy with C, focusing on user experience. Hall highlights Odin's journey, balancing tradition with innovation, and critiques C's macro system while promoting Odin's hygienic macros. His refreshing take makes Odin not just an alternative, but a comfortable evolution of C for today's programming needs.
Odin aims to reimagine the C programming language by incorporating decades of feedback to enhance both its functionality and user experience.
The language's design minimizes implicit behaviors while emphasizing explicitness, making it easier for developers to manage resources and control flow.
Odin's compatibility with existing C libraries allows developers to leverage low-level performance benefits while enjoying high-level language features seamlessly.
Deep dives
Introduction to Odin
Odin is a systems programming language designed as an alternative to C, with the intention of incorporating lessons learned over the decades of C's existence. It features low-level capabilities such as native support for matrices and techniques to optimize data layout in memory, which can greatly enhance performance. In addition to these low-level structures, Odin also emphasizes ergonomic improvements that cater to developers familiar with C, making the transition smoother. This dual approach aims to make Odin both powerful and accessible across various platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and some embedded systems.
Key Design Philosophy
The design of Odin revolves around minimizing implicit behavior while still being intuitive for developers. For example, a notable feature in Odin is the 'defer' statement, which allows developers to specify cleanup actions to be performed at the end of a scope, thus enhancing control flow. This feature improves clarity and reduces the risk of resource leaks that often plague manual resource management in C. By consciously gathering patterns and practices commonly adopted by C programmers, Odin codifies these into the language structure, promoting better coding practices.
Explicit Control Over Data and Functions
Odin promotes explicitness by allowing developers to specify calling conventions and control over parameter passing. Instead of constantly dealing with value or reference passing, Odin makes decisions based on parameter size and performance considerations, streamlining development without creating a burden for the programmer. Moreover, core data types such as complex numbers and quaternions are integrated into the language to facilitate mathematical operations directly, reducing the need for operator overloading. This straightforward system provides a familiar syntax for computations while avoiding the complexities and pitfalls of more advanced features.
Flexible Integration with Other Languages
Odin simplifies the process of integrating with foreign code, allowing seamless interaction with C libraries and vice versa. Developers can import foreign symbols and define their calling conventions alongside their usage, essentially linking C functionalities directly within Odin code. This flexibility grants programmers the capacity to leverage existing C libraries while enjoying the syntactical and operational benefits of Odin. Such compatibility makes Odin a practical choice for projects that require both low-level performance and high-level language features.
Focus on Performance and Usability
The design of Odin is heavily influenced by modern hardware capabilities, aiming for high performance without sacrificing ease of use. It targets various platforms including AMD64 and ARM architectures, as well as WebAssembly, making it versatile for different development needs. The language’s compilation speed is optimized for multithreaded environments, ensuring efficient use of computational resources while accommodating various project sizes. This focus on performance, combined with a commitment to developer-friendliness, positions Odin as a compelling option for both new and experienced programmers.
Odin’s creator, Bill Hall, makes some bold claims about the language, including that it’s “programming done right”. Before that starts a war on the internet, we’d best ask him to explain what that means, and how Odin tries to achieve it. And while we get deep into the details, overall his answer seems to be, “By gathering masses of feedback and then refining C until it feels joyous again.
Of all the C-like languages we’ve looked at on Developer Voices, Odin seems to be the most at-ease with its progenitor. It’s not trying to be a revolutionary new way of thinking about systems programming; it’s just trying to rethink C for modern conventions. If Bill’s hit his goals, it might be the most comfortable way to get a language that’s C, but C done better…
