I started Guillotine in Rust, but quickly switched to Zig. This piece explains why in hindsight that was the right call.
- Zig: fanatically explicit, zero hidden control flow/allocations, first-class C interop, powerful
comptimefor safety + customization, simple mental model for size/perf. - Rust: superb compiler and ecosystem, strong safety model, great tooling; but hidden control flow and panic/unwind mechanics make size/perf reasoning harder, and FFI ergonomics add ceremony.