As someone who understand the sentiment, I wouldn't call it distaste for Rust. It feels more as Rust not being the right tool for the job and to be honest I have the same feeling here. Rust is great for a bunch of problem domains, but it doesn't feel to be the best tool for this specific problem domain.
It's always about the choices a programming language makes, it make it good for some use-cases and bad for others and there's nothing wrong with it.
Also as a cautionary tale about panacea programming languages, Java once tried it with great success to be "the one" language to rule them all and we can see that even though it was a popular choice in many domains, slowly other fitting solutions to specific problem domains took over. Proving that there is no such a thing, unfortunately for us, but some languages gets closer than others (Rust being one of them).
Well if anything take as a compliment. As a C, C++ (and some Rust) who lately is enjoying Zig, I think Zig is the only programming language positioned to convince system programming die hard C programmers to use another programming language with simplicity and power backed in.
But completely agree. Its a perfect replacement for C++ and I would say the natural spiritual successor of C.
I gave up using Rust for new projects after seeing the limitations for the kind of software I like to write and have been using Zig instead as it gives me the freedom I need without all the over-complication that languages like C++ and Rust bring to the table.
I think people should first experiment see for themselves and only then comment as I see a lot of misinformation and beliefs more based on marketing than reality.
We are in the "system engineering territory" and as such it might have more to do with the way the runtime is designed and how the javascript native runtime does things than the compiler optimizations.
You have to measure syscalls, memory access, cpu cache locality and a bunch of design decisions that in the end contribute a lot to the running time. So depending on the decisions taken, it can easily happen.
My take on this as someone that professionally coded in C, C++, Go, Rust, Python (and former darlings of the past) is that Zig gives you the sort of control that C does with enough niceties as to not break into other idioms like C++ and Rust does in terms of complexity.
Rust "breaks" on some low level stuff when you need to deal with unsafe (another idiom) or when you need to rely on proc-macros to have a component system like Bevy does. Nothing wrong with this, is just that is hard to cover all the ground.
The same happens with C++, having to grow to adapt to cover a lot of ground it ended up with lots of features and also with some complexity burden.
In my experience with Zig, you have the feeling of thinking more about systems engineering using the language to help you implement that without resorting to all sort of language idioms and complexity. It feels more intuitive in way giving it tries to stay simple and get out of your way. Its a more "unsurprising" programming language in terms of what you end up getting after you code into it, in terms of understanding exactly how the code will run.
In terms of ecosystem, lets say you have Java lunch, C lunch and C++ lunch (established languages) in their domains. Go is eating some Java(C#, etc..) lunch and in smaller domains some C++ lunch. Rust is in the same heavy weight category as Go, but it can eat more C++ lunch than Go ever could.
Now Zig will be able to compete in ways that it can really be an alternative to C core values, which other programming languages failed to achieve. So it will be aimed at things C and C++ are doing now and where Go and Rust wont be good candidates.
If you used Rust long enough you can see that while it can cover almost all ground its not a good fit for lower level stuff or at least not without some compromises either in performance or complexity (affecting productivity). So its more in the same family as C++ in terms of what you pay for (again nothing wrong with that, is just that some complex codebases will need a good amount of man-hours effort in the same line as C++ does).
Don't get me wrong, Rust can be good at low level stuff too, is just that some of its choices make you as a developer pay a price for those niceties when you need to get your hands dirty in specific domains.
With Zig you fell more focused on the machine with less abstractions as in C but with enough goodies that can make even the most die-hard C developer think about using it (something C++ and Rust never managed to do it).
So i think Zig will have its place in the sun as Rust does. But I see Rust taking more the place where Java used to be (together with Go) + some things that were made in C++ where Zig will be more focused on system and low level stuff.
Modern C++ will still be around, but Rust and Zig will used more and more where languages like C and C++ used to be the only real contenders, which is quite good in my POV.
What will happen is that Rust and Zig programmers might overlap and offer tools in the same area (see Bun and Deno for instance) but the tools will excel on their own way and with time it will be more clear into which domain Rust and Zig are better at.
In portuguese 'vala' is the hole you dig on the ground or a naturally occuring one. Which can also be used as a synonym to "cova" which translates to "grave".
I bet it will be hard to make a community for it here in Brazil or Portugal.
Lets see after you try a big project in Rust, if you come back with the same appreciation.
Most of the times i think is a overburden, I know people like Haskellers like to suffer and are masochistic coders, and may like this, but i dont.. already have to deal with C++, and Rust did achieve the impossible.. Its even more over-enginnered than C++, and its not even faster
As someone who understand the sentiment, I wouldn't call it distaste for Rust. It feels more as Rust not being the right tool for the job and to be honest I have the same feeling here. Rust is great for a bunch of problem domains, but it doesn't feel to be the best tool for this specific problem domain. It's always about the choices a programming language makes, it make it good for some use-cases and bad for others and there's nothing wrong with it. Also as a cautionary tale about panacea programming languages, Java once tried it with great success to be "the one" language to rule them all and we can see that even though it was a popular choice in many domains, slowly other fitting solutions to specific problem domains took over. Proving that there is no such a thing, unfortunately for us, but some languages gets closer than others (Rust being one of them).