[ISSUE] Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[ISSUE] Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[booniepepper]

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New issue by booniepepper on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424

Description:
Opening this issue to discuss an upgrade of Zig from 0.10.1 to 0.11.0

Zig 0.11.0 was released yesterday: https://ziglang.org/download/0.11.0/release-notes.html

It's backwards-incompatible with 0.10.1 which should be no big surprise. What I'm
interested in talking about is how to handle the transition. A lot of Zig software
has been tracking the changes for 0.11.0 in particular because it came with some
package management abilities that really made owning a zig-built library or executable
a lot cheaper.

Is it acceptable to have two versions of Zig in void-packages while projects are transitioning?

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[booniepepper]

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New comment by booniepepper on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1665965411

Comment:
cc @ifreund

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[icp1994]

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New comment by icp1994 on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1666049769

Comment:
For a start, it requires llvm v16.x which will take a non-trivial amount of effort to get into Void repos. It's highly likely that by the time the latest llvm hits the repos, the existing zig packages would have already migrated to zig v0.11.x

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[booniepepper]

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New comment by booniepepper on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1666144771

Comment:
That makes sense to me, thanks!

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[voidbert]

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New comment by voidbert on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1676336186

Comment:
@icp1994  Are there any plans to package LLVM 16? Packaging something as massive as LLVM is a massive endeavor (see #40821, for LLVM 15), and involves updating many packages that depend on LLVM (Zig, for example). With LLVM 17 just around the corner in September (https://llvm.org/), is it worth it to make an effort, or should Void just skip v16 and go straight to 17?

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[icp1994]

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New comment by icp1994 on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1676369312

Comment:
Honestly, I don't know what the best strategy is. If you are asking for zig only, iirc each major version of zig is compatible with only one major version of llvm so I think if you skip llvm v16 you cannot build zig v0.11.x. But I feel only zig (and related softwares) being blocked on it might not cut for the effort of a llvm update. For example, the last time llvm was updated, rust was also blocked on it.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[voidbert]

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New comment by voidbert on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1676395432

Comment:
@icp1994 The best strategy would be for the folks at LLVM to make their software backwards / forwards compatible, but we all know that's not gonna happen. Nevertheless, Zig will be coming out with some alternative backends (C, x86, ARM and LLVM bitcode, instead of linking to LLVM libraries). This would remove the mandatory LLVM dependency, making a zig update just a version bump + new checksum.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[booniepepper]

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New comment by booniepepper on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1676396633

Comment:
For what it's worth, in Nix the strategy is to import multiple versions of these foundational things like LLVM. They also do it with Zig since they have software that needs Zig 0.9, 0.10, and now 0.11. Applications and tools and etc tend to only have a single rolling version

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[voidbert]

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New comment by voidbert on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1676398817

Comment:
@booniepepper Void already maintains different versions of packages like LLVM (https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/tree/master/srcpkgs/llvm12, for example). The problem is that there aren't enough human resources to package and maintain all versions of LLVM. Between 12 and 15, there are no other LLVM versions on the repos, for example.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[booniepepper]

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New comment by booniepepper on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1676424309

Comment:
Looking at the patches and script... Yeah I see how that can be an adventure to set up

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[tranzystorek-io]

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New comment by tranzystorek-io on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1677027165

Comment:
> Void already maintains different versions of packages like LLVM

To be precise, we keep the previous llvm version for its libllvm shlib, but all the other subpackages like clang have always had just one version at a time.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[Anachron]

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New comment by Anachron on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1755914873

Comment:
I hope we will find some volunteers to tackle this task.
While I am not skilled enough to do this myself, I would volunteer for testing.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[voidbert]

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New comment by voidbert on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1756349377

Comment:
For anyone here that needs Zig 0.11, even if it doesn't get added to Void's repos, **you don't need to build it from source**. Zig's [prebuilt binaries](https://ziglang.org/download/) are statically linked, working perfectly on both musl and glibc systems (I tested it myself).

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[booniepepper]

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New comment by booniepepper on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1756477288

Comment:
Hmmm maybe that's the thing to do. I was also considering packaging my zig-built projects from binaries too, but I didn't know if that would be frowned upon

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[Anachron]

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New comment by Anachron on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1756846506

Comment:
Sadly binary releases are nearly impossible to get into Void Packages, but there could maybe be an exception as long as we dont have LLVM16 yet?

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[github-actions]

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New comment by github-actions[bot] on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1884061483

Comment:
Issues become stale 90 days after last activity and are closed 14 days after that.  If this issue is still relevant bump it or assign it.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[booniepepper]

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New comment by booniepepper on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1884452669

Comment:
I'm still interested in this, but between job hunting and holidays I haven't been able to make the time yet.

IDK if this helps a lot of people, but one note for Zig project owners is that it's possible to support a range of Zig versions even with the breaking changes. Here's an example of me adding Zig 0.10.1 support back into a project that was already upgraded to 0.11.0: https://github.com/so-dang-cool/dt/commit/f58602c5444099c7e63a330f46a21af3cea8844e

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[icp1994]

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New comment by icp1994 on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1936319679

Comment:
Now that llvm17 is merged, you can start working on zig-0.11 if you want.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[tranzystorekk]

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New comment by tranzystorekk on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1936326041

Comment:
zig unfortunately pins LLVM version strictly, and 0.11 wants LLVM 16

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[icp1994]

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New comment by icp1994 on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1936449007

Comment:
Ah right, forgot it's not forward compatible either.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[Anachron]

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New comment by Anachron on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1936998384

Comment:
So we have to wait for zig0.12 and hope it uses llvm17? What if it uses 18? This is ridiculous (not our fault though).

Maybe zig has their own Compiler until then.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[voidbert]

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New comment by voidbert on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1937865711

Comment:
> So we have to wait for zig0.12 and hope it uses llvm17? What if it uses 18? This is ridiculous (not our fault though).
> 
> Maybe zig has their own Compiler until then.

Currently, C, x86 and ARM backups are on the works. Zig is also removing the hard dependency from LLVM: it'll output IR which can then be compiled by LLVM, and it won't need `libllvm` anymore. I do not know, however, if the produced IR will require a specific LLVM version.

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[Calandracas606]

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New comment by Calandracas606 on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1938035683

Comment:
I'm already working on llvm18 #48661 

Hopefully it will ready for zig0.12

Re: Updating Zig to 0.11.0

[Anachron]

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New comment by Anachron on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/45424#issuecomment-1938060961

Comment:
Normally it takes a lot of time until all packages are ready and then zig0.12 will probably be old again.