Is Odin Just a More Boring C?
17 hours ago
- #Odin
- #Game Development
- #Systems Programming
- The author explores Odin, a systems programming language initially dismissed as only for game development but found to be versatile for general systems programming.
- A tiny key-value store with pub/sub capabilities was built in Odin to test the language's features, including data structures, memory management, concurrency, and networking.
- Odin's manual memory management is user-friendly compared to C, with utilities like `make` for slice allocation and explicit `delete` for freeing memory.
- Concurrency was added using Odin's `core:thread` library, with mutexes ensuring thread safety for shared resources.
- Odin's standard and vendor libraries are comprehensive, offering built-in support for graphics (SDL2, OpenGL, Vulkan) and easy C interop.
- The language lacks a package manager, and some standard library features like advanced file I/O are missing.
- Odin's syntax is clean and readable, though some symbols like `^` for pointers and `::` for type declarations take getting used to.
- Ideal use cases for Odin include game development, systems programming, and desktop applications, but it's less suited for web development.
- The author plans to use Odin for future projects, appreciating its simplicity, performance, and comprehensive libraries.