What is Zig written in?
What Zig is used for
Zig is a modern systems language positioned as a simpler, safer alternative to C, with manual memory control, no hidden allocations, and excellent C interop and cross-compilation.
Notable software: the Bun JavaScript runtime is written in Zig, and it is increasingly used for low-level tooling and game development.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Andrew Kelley
- First released
- 2016
- Typing
- static
- License
- MIT License
- Filename extension
- .zig, .zon
- Website
- ziglang.org
About Zig
Zig is a programming language. It is a statically typed language that compiles ahead of time to native machine code. It supports imperative and systems programming.
Zig first appeared in 2016. Development is led by Andrew Kelley. Zig is now used mainly in specialized niches and by dedicated communities.
How Zig is implemented
In the Language Lineage dataset, Zig is self-hosting, so its own compiler is written in Zig itself and it was later rewritten in Zig. Reaching self-hosting, where a language is mature enough to compile itself, is a milestone that proves the language can handle a large, real-world program.
Zig in the language family tree
Zig drew on ideas from Rust and C.
Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata · Official site
Frequently Asked Questions
Evidence Sources
- https://ziglang.org/news/goodbye-cpp/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zig_(programming_language)
- https://ziglang.org/
- Zig on Wikidata (Q51885456)