Zig Projects/Modules

[ghost]

Related to #943

What will zig projects/modules look like?

• Folder structure? Project descriptor file? All in build.zig?
• If there will be a project descriptor file, which format: DSL? project.zig? XML? JSON?
• What should be the responsibilities of build.zig VS the zig project?

What purpose could projects/modules serve?

• Make it easier to use zig in IDEs?
• Define "public" interfaces/APIs? vtable abstraction of some kind. traits? oop? polymorphism? interfaces? #130 Proposal: User definable type constraints on polymorphic parameters #1669 update standard library to a better "interface" pattern so that we have a null hypothesis against the interface/oop proposal #1829
• Define all necessary information for the package manager?
• Support build.zig by defining dependencies?
• .... ?

What existing systems out there are the most interesting to compare with?

• Maven?
• Java 9 module system?
• IDE inspired, like Visual Studio Solutions
• ... ?

[ikskuh]

I really like that we only have build.zig right now. To support IDEs supporting Zig projects, the zig executable could get a feature like

[user@device my-project] zig list-files
./main.zig
./src/color.zig
./src/radial.zig
./src/foobla.zig

that would list all files references in the project. This could even output a dependency tree so the project could be viewed hierarchical in the IDE.

[andrewrk]

Let's take this discussion to one of the other community areas: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/wiki/Community