Zig's new I/O: function coloring is inevitable?
10 months ago
- #programming
- #Zig
- #async
- Bob Nystrom's 2015 blog post 'What Color is Your Function?' sparked discussions on async computation handling in programming languages.
- Zig introduced a new I/O approach, aiming to solve function coloring by passing 'std.Io' to functions, but it shifts the problem to 'io/non-io' instead of blocking/non-blocking.
- The article argues that function coloring is about semantics and behavior, not just syntax or type signatures, and may be inherently unsolvable.
- Zig's design improves ergonomics by unifying execution models, similar to how 'std.mem.Allocator' is passed for memory allocation.
- The post concludes that while function coloring remains a challenge, Zig's approach offers a more convenient way to handle I/O operations.