Odin or Rust

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You're already considering it; try it out.

Exploration and prototyping is not a life-commitment that excludes other options later (like going back to Rust after all).

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Cat & Onion looks cute. Thanks for letting us know it's written in Odin.

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For a language constantly voted as most desired for x number if years in a row (stackoverflow survey), there are now quite a few developers actively working with Rust full-time and paid. I think it's in top 20 languages by now.

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It's certainly growing fast. And yeah, tops the desired charts.

Python did that for years, and is now at number 4 (after the big three JavaScript, SQL and HTML).

I agree, Rust is likely top 20, but there's a massive drop off in real world use after the top 8 or 10.

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It's better than writing C, Java or Cyton.

I believe you!

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Thanks for the counterpoint.

I always worry about the kids breaking in running after the next hot thing, and then not landing a job, because I've talked to folks who did so.

I was needlessly worried, as they're picking for a hobby project, anyway.

And as someone else pointed out, Rust is on its way up. I just wouldn't recommend Rust to a newbie as their first language to land their first job, today.

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there are now quite a few developers actively working with Rust full-time and paid.

Yeah. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But quite a few doesn't always cut it to break into the field.

But my concern was entirely misplaced as they're picking for a hobby project anyway.

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As someone who's used both, I'd have a strong preference for Odin over Rust if it were at a stable 1.0 release. As it stands now (or, at least, when I used it), Odin is very much in flux. Spend enough time with the language, and you'll either find a bug with the compiler or the semantics will change after you update.

That said, it would be my favorite without those problems. It is a really simple language in a good way. There's no fancy language features that are just syntax sugar (well except maybe context, but I find that to be actually convenient). You can understand everything in an afternoon if you are already familiar with programming in other languages. Rust is pretty much the opposite in all of these reguards.

Rust also has the benefit of being pretty recognizable at this point, so if you say your project is in Rust then people will know what that means, unlike Odin. More "resume-able" in a way.

So, in short:

Odin if you're doing it as a hobby
Rust if you want something "real"

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You should seriously consider using Odin if you happen to be writing code on a Wednesday and you want additional divine blessing.

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Game engines seem to be explicitly what Odin was built do. I'm just reading their website for the first time but they make that clear.

My impression of Odin is that its explicitly made to enable you to write unsafe code. But that's good if you want to get some crazy optimizations going through.

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I agree Odin is simple which is why I’m drawn to it, after all i know computer science so really i don't need a prescribed away to do something like in Rust. Rust is amazing, but it can be slow to develop in, the points is in the compiler as for a solo dev, it reduces my need for a code quality team. Odin just gets out the way and let's you get going, it's also Go like which i'm familiar with. I've been slowly planning to stick with Rust, i might help my son learn Odin though

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I'm reading his book to get up to speed on Odin as we speak

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I already know C/C++, I love them but I never use them again. Rust's borrow checker is still active in unsafe Rust, combined with Miri it detects most UB, leaks and various other problems. For instance I’m building a allocator now in Rust and i know it compiles and Miri didn't complain, sure i can do it in C and use Valgrind but Rust makes it a dream.

I know for Odin there are 3 tools i was looking at which could validate it for UB and leaks at runtime, but what attracts me to Odin is the fact it's not OOP and simple. I'm considering using it because i will be more debugging my game, rather than the language (to quote Zig).

But all that being said I’m good with Rust and it's tooling, so I’m probably going to remain with Rust. But yours and everyone's opinions is helping me form this so thank you!!

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Yes and although since originally posting, I’ve began to lean towards Rust. My son wants to learn how to program and Odin will be great for him

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This is just my take, but a game engine could be a really cool way to see how far you can take Odin. As a new language, I don’t think there are many complex projects using it.

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Odin or Rust