sokol-tools VS v

I would really love being able to take any POSIX command line tool, compile that to WASI, and run it on (at least) Linux, Windows and macOS like a regular executable without having to install a separate WASI runtime.

I'm a 'WASI convert' since I was able to take an ancient 8-bit assembler written in the mid-90's (http://xi6.com/projects/asmx/), compile that as-is with the WASI SDK (https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-sdk), and then integrate it into a VSCode extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=floooh.v...).

A similar problem is I have is a shader cross-compiler (https://github.com/floooh/sokol-tools) which needs to run Linux, macOS and Windows and takes too long to build locally, thus I currently need to distribute that as pre-built binaries. Compiling this to WASI works, but the filesystem access restrictions built into current wasm runtimes are a hassle to manage, and it would require a WASI runtime to be separately installed).

Sokol also provides a solution for shader cross-compilation (https://github.com/floooh/sokol-tools/blob/master/docs/sokol...), so you only need to write your shaders once no matter if you're targeting OpenGL, Metal, or DirectX.

There are other tools you could use out there with IGL, but Sokol's solution streamlines the whole process.

> but that is only for software written in C, it does not work with C++.

I have a pretty complex C++ command line tool which works just fine with MUSL (https://github.com/floooh/sokol-tools). What potential problems should I be aware of?

In practice it works very well though, I experimented replacing cmake with build.zig for a 'not-quite-trivial' C++ project, and tbh for cross-platform code that's a lot nicer wrestling with cmake and all the C/C++ compiler toolchain differences:

https://github.com/floooh/sokol-tools/blob/master/build.zig

Yes, here is an example:

https://github.com/floooh/sokol-tools/blob/master/build.zig

Compared to cmake, this means giving up IDE support like Xcode or Visual Studio though, it's really just a pure build system.

Their site is clearly showing the language is in beta. The V documentation also states that autofree is WIP, and to use the GC instead. This isn't a corporate created language, but looks to be a true volunteer open source effort from people around the world.

Their community, in comparison to others, even has their discussions open and open threads for criticism[1]. These

[1]https://github.com/vlang/v/discussions/7610

V also has this https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/doc/docs.md#embed_fil...

Goroutines was the selling point for me until they decided to introduce telemetry in their toolchain; that was what forced me to stop using Golang as a whole.

About GC, I would say: if you implement C++'s RAII mechanism to replace garbage collection, then I believe this project will have a bright future.

My final question is the following: how `pcz` compares to V language, from a syntax's perspective [1]?

[1] https://github.com/vlang/v

V has the right to exist, have its supporters, and do things its own way. The creator and developers of V, from what I have seen, has always responded well to constructive criticism. Their language has discussions opened at their GitHub, unlike those for various other languages. They even have a thread for what people don't like and want improved about the language[1], again, something many other languages don't have.

A lot of what was going on initially, was coming from obvious competitors, to include being uncivil, inflammatory, and insulting. The initial "criticism" was not so much that, but false accusations of the language being a scam, vaporware, fraud, or didn't really exist. To include attacks and jealousy about its funding and having supporters. This was not any kind of "valid" criticism, that the creator or contributors of the language could reason about.

The "criticism" never died down, but rather after V was open-sourced and established itself on GitHub. The initial series of false accusations could not stand nor could the support it was getting be stopped. So, the rhetoric and targets shifted to whatever could be found to go after on the newly released alpha version of the language and its new website. In that new mix of what was being thrown at it, there were indeed some very valid criticisms, as can be found with any new language.

Constructive and valid criticism, is not the same as insults, trolling, misinformation, rivalry, or false accusations. There is clearly a difference. It's disingenuous to pretend something from one group is the same as the other, or that the intent behind what is being done is not different.

[1] https://github.com/vlang/v/discussions/7610