Show HN: C3 – A C alternative that looks like C

For vkDoom it's not a port to C3. What it demonstrates is instead C <=> C3 interop. I removed some of the central functions from the C code and implemented those in C3. The script compiles the C files into .o files with the normal C compiler, then uses the C3 compiler to compile the .c3 files into .o files. Finally all are linked together into a single binary showing off the simple ABI compatibility story (no extra annotations are needed to ensure compatibility - all C3 functions are automatically callable as C functions)

In regards to the versioning, I've gone through two versioning schemes for the pre-alpha. 0.1.0 is the first version I felt was sufficiently feature complete. Minor version changes (e.g. 0.1.x -> 0.2.x) is for any breaking changes. Minor version doesn't say how close it is to version 1.0 (minor version will continue after 0.9.x with 0.10.x). The 0.1 version was out in April. I try to make the compiler as solid as possible, but I would need thousands (rather than somewhere above 400) tests before I feel confident in the compiler.

Releasing 0.1 means I think that the language design is mostly there now, so fewer changes are coming. But joining any language before 1.0 is a bumpy ride.

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[1] https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html

I'm curious how familiar you are with C? In C++ you can do:

  struct Foo {
    // ...
  };
  Foo myVar;

  struct Foo {
    // ...
  };
  struct Foo myVar;

> I don't think I can get further into the primer than this... even taking the author at their word that the two snippets are equivalent

Maybe don't judge the author on these things if you're not familiar with how C would work in this case? There's nothing wrong with not understanding a piece of code, but it's generally not a good idea to assume you have understanding of a language like C if you understand C++. People often conflate the two, but there are many quirks of C that C++ doesn't necessarily need to do and vice versa.

Edit: "Declaring more than one variable at a time is not allowed." So there's no equivalent to the C code ""struct {} foo, bar, baz"... not clear if "struct IDontNeedANameButTheLanguageIsForcingMe foo {}; IDontNeedANameButTheLanguageIsForcingMe bar; IDontNeedANameButTheLanguageIsForcingMe baz;" is legal (modulo that some of those semicolons are illegal I think?).

Yeah, this needs some rigor in the docs.

That would not be the equivalent... you would then need to declare the type of Foo variables as:

    struct Foo myVar;

    Foo myVar;

The second question is more subtle. In C, the syntax is `struct { ... } [optional member name] ;`. Because there is no anonymous struct at the top level, the anonymous structs inside of a struct has a different syntax, also eschewing the final `;`, changing the syntax to `struct [optional member name] { ... }`. If the C syntax structure is desired a final `;` would be required. This syntax change comes from C2.

C is a small language. There are benefits to that. But it also has a handful of historical oddities. Innovation here means to keep C small while also getting rid of those quirks.

C++ is enormous. Rust is headed in the direction of similar enormity.

There's a significant number of C programmers who want something slightly more modern and convenient but don't want to write C++ due to a number of reasons.

I think Zig, D are examples of this niche but syntax wise they don't completely look like C.

And it’s not a dead end at all - embedded systems, wasm, wasi, really fast things, and aside from assembly it’s one of the first things on newer platforms (risc v for example).

I like Go for the same “try to keep it minimal” reasons, and keen to try Zig when I have some time.

I think the bias you are implying might be misplaced.

C is like a table saw without a blade guard. Simple yet precise, powerful, flexible, and will cut your fingers off if you aren’t careful.

But it’s often exactly the kind of dangerous saw we need sometimes.

There’s no point in trying to improve it - there are plenty of other, safer saws for that.

Actually I just want to write software the same way I've been doing it for the last 40 years, but otherwise yeah.

There are a lot of C compilers out there, people write them for fun. I like the idea that someone would write a C3 compiler "for fun". So limiting implementation complexity is something I have as a goal. What would it take for someone to write a compiler for just the BetterC subset? Would it be doable like implementing C?

Googling around seems to suggest there is rt_init or Runtime.initialize for that?

I've never used D, I'm just curious about the problem described.

Ps. Goes without saying that i, like others, appreciate your comments here.

I agree about strings. There are basically two strings we use: the string builder and the "string data" which is any sort of slice of bytes that can be interpreted as a string. But starting from there are a lot of different ways one can name and implement them. I'm doing some experiments and before those are finished I don't have a strong opinion.

One thing to note though is that C3 does not have RAII or move semantics and so the C++ std::string or similar isn't even an option.

Its even more cumbersome, but its what you pay if you want efficiency in c.

The standard library is far from done, but I imagine it having a common core, supported by all targets. Then a common set of modules that are available on most but not necessarily ALL targets. Outside of that there are “standard library ‘extras’” which will only be of use for certain programs. Beyond that there’s the vendor collection of officially supported external vendor libraries that are not part of the standard library.

    float[<4>] y = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
    float[<4>] z = { 2, 2, 2, -100 };
    float[<4>] w = y + z;

Basically the C grammar is only context free if you cheat in the lexer, and any language trying to improve on C is likely to try to avoid that (or just give up and go wild).

- Although C3 mostly conforms to C syntax, the most obvious change is requiring `fn` in front of the functions. This is to simplify searching for definitions in editors.