[taylorallred]

I have admired many parts of Zig and its philosophy but I've never seen it as a language that I want to use. What I've noticed is that Zig users care most about explicitness, simplicity, and minimal indirection. This leads to a lot of syntax that is cumbersome to read (albeit unambiguous) like casting and a lack of "convenience" features. I can't help but think that maybe they're right and that this philosophy probably leads to better software because nothing is "hidden". But, I also think that there's a level of abstraction/indirection that makes code clearer and less error-prone. It's a tricky balance to achieve, and past languages have succeeded and failed at it to different degrees. Either way, I echo the OP's sentiment: if Zig is your jam, great, go make some awesome stuff with it. It's just not my go-to today.

[pron]

Design choices that are appropriate for low-level programming may be less appropriate for high-level programming and vice versa. In low level programming, you may want to see "on the page" anything that could translate to some machine work, because in low-level programming, such details may be essential to the algorithm. In high-level programming, the same details are likely not essential to the algorithm, and so you don't want to see them.

[ksec]

I think, but I may be wrong, Zig wants to be high level assembly that could replace C. If people are viewing it from Python, Ruby, JS, and then C++ and Java POV, Zig may be a little too "raw". But then I don't think Zig intends to compete with C++ or Java. May be there will be a Zig ++ or Objective-Zig someday that will do that.

[kstenerud]

It really comes down to a matter of opinion where the line between "nothing hidden" and convenience lies. Technically, a loop is an abstraction of convenience that hides the comparative jump underneath.