Dabbling in Odin

I spend my days in Zig and Rust. A new language I am dabbling in is Odin. Nothing serious yet, just evenings reading and writing small things. These are first impressions, not a review, and definitely not a tutorial.

What it is

Odin is Ginger Bill's language, going since 2016. The site calls it the data-oriented language for people who ship, and a C alternative for the joy of programming. The stated principles are simplicity, high performance, being built for modern machines, and the pleasure of programming itself. It compiles to native code, gives you full control over memory, and has custom allocators as a first-class idea.

Coming from Zig

The family resemblance is obvious. Both are small, procedural, C-shaped languages that refuse to hide things from you. Both make allocation explicit. Both have defer. Both treat errors as values rather than exceptions. Odin has multiple return values, which Zig does without.

The difference is in temperament. Zig makes you spell out the allocator at every call site and is strict about implicit casts. Odin has custom allocators front and centre too, but wears them more lightly, and the code reads closer to the C you would have written on a good day. For a protocol client I want Zig's strictness. For a weekend program I can see the appeal of the other.

Coming from Rust

There is no borrow checker, and after years of Rust that is the first thing you feel. It is not an argument for one or the other. It is a different bet: that a programmer who owns the memory layout can keep it correct without the compiler enforcing it. Rust proves the other bet works too. I like having both in the toolbox.

What stands out

• Array programming built in: component-wise operations and swizzling on fixed arrays, the way shader languages do it.
• Structure-of-arrays types, so a data-oriented layout does not mean writing the bookkeeping yourself.
• Bit sets and enumerated arrays as ordinary language features.
• SIMD and inline assembly available when you need them.
• A vendor collection out of the box: OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal, Direct3D, WebGL, wgpu, SDL2, raylib, GLFW, miniaudio.

That last point explains where the language is used. The showcase is graphics tools, a profiler, a video editor, a number of games on Steam. That is not the corner I work in, which is partly why it is interesting.

Verdict, for now

None. I have not built anything in it that matters, and I will not pretend otherwise. What I can say is that it is pleasant and the design has a clear opinion. When I have a small graphics or simulation itch, Odin is the language I will scratch it with, and then I will know more.