Odin vs Jai

Odin vs Jai

Time of writing: February 2020

Similarities:

• Named-Focused Declaration Syntax
• using statement
• defer statement
• Parametric Polymorphic name syntax with $
• Implicit context System
• any (Odin) type / Any (Jai) type
• when (Odin) statement / #if (Jai) statement
• typeid type (Odin) / Type type (Jai)
• Default procedure parameter values
• Named procedure results
• Default initialization on variable declarations
• Explicit uninitialization on variable declarations with x: T = ---;

Differences:

Odin	Jai
Publicly Available	Private Beta Only (Currently)
Strong Typed with virtually no implicit conversions	Many implicit conversions similar to C++
Pascal-family Type System	C-family Type System
Modula/Go style directory-based package system	File-based library system
Discriminated union type	—
bit_set	—
bit_field type	—
cstring	*u8 (not equivalent)
distinct type declarations	—
Built-in map type	(User-level type)
Slicing notation like Python/Go [lo:hi]	—
where clauses for procedure and record types	—
switch statements which allow for multiple cases, ranges, and any/union types	if cond=={ case x:
Explicit parameter declaration with for val, idx in array{}	Implicit parameter declaration with for array { val, idx := it, it_index; }
Extensive constant system which "just works" reducing the need for implicit conversions	Basic constant system
rune type for Unicode Codepoints	s32 (signed 32-bit integer)
Unicode identifiers	(Unknown)
Array programming	Available explicitly through operator overloading
—	Operator overloading
Explicit procedure overloading	Implicit procedure overloading
Zero is initialized	Default struct fields
Built-in complex and quaternion types	(User-level type)
rawptr	*void
ptr: ^int; i := ptr^; x := &i;	ptr: *int; i := <<ptr; x:= *i;
proc(T) -> U	(T) -> U
proc(a, b: int, c: string)	(a: int, b: int, c: string)
#soa arrays	(User-level type through metaprogramming and operator overloading)
Enumerated arrays	—
Iterators through procedures	Iterators through macros
Ranged Fields for array compounds literals	—
Implicit Selector Expressions .A
#partial switch	#complete if cond == {
—	Arbitrary Compile Time Execution
—	Compile Time AST modification
—	Hygenic Macros