Odin - A Systems Language That Doesn't Hate You

I've been writing C for over a decade, and C++ for longer than I care to admit. When I first heard about Odin, I rolled my eyes - another "better C" that would probably disappear in six months. I was wrong.

The Problem With Everything Else

C is great if you enjoy segfaults and spending hours debugging buffer overflows. C++ is powerful if you like deciphering compiler errors that span three screens and having to understand template metaprogramming just to use the standard library.

Rust promises memory safety but forces you to fight the borrow checker every time you want to share data between threads. Go decided garbage collection was fine for systems programming. Swift tried to be everything to everyone and ended up being nothing to most.

Then there's Odin.

What Actually Works

Ginger Bill (the guy who made it) got tired of C++ bullshit sometime in 2016 and decided to fix it. Instead of adding more features on top of decades of cruft, he started fresh with one goal: make C not suck.

The result feels like what C would be if it was designed by someone who actually has to maintain production code:

Memory management that makes sense: You want memory? Call `make()`. Done with it? Call delete(). No hidden allocations, no mystery performance hits, no fighting a borrow checker.

Dynamic arrays that work: Need a growing array? Use `[dynamic]int`. Want to add stuff? Use append(). It's not rocket science.

Error handling without exceptions: Functions return multiple values. If something fails, you get both the result and the error. Use `or_return` to bubble errors up. Clean and obvious.

The SOA Thing Actually Matters

Here's where Odin gets interesting - they built Structure of Arrays (SOA) support right into the language. Instead of having an array of structs scattered all over memory, you can flip it to struct-of-arrays with `#soa` and get actual cache performance.

I tried this on a particle system with 100k particles. Just adding #soa to the array declaration cut frame time by 40%. No code changes, no manual data layout optimization, just better defaults.

Production Reality Check

JangaFX makes professional VFX software used by AAA game studios and movie companies. Their entire product line - EmberGen, GeoGen, LiquiGen - is written in Odin. When Bethesda and Warner Bros are using your tools in production, that's not a hobby project anymore.

Their CEO streams the development on Twitch. You can literally watch them fix bugs and add features in real time. It's either really transparent or completely insane, depending on your perspective.

The Rough Edges

Let's be honest - it's pre-1.0, which means breaking changes will occasionally ruin your weekend. The debugging experience on Linux is broken (use Windows or pray to the GDB gods). Documentation has gaps, and the package ecosystem is basically "here's some bindings to popular C libraries."

The compiler rebuilds everything every time, which is annoying for larger projects. IDE support exists but feels like 2015-era tooling. If you need enterprise support contracts, look elsewhere.

But if you're building games, simulations, or anything where you need C-level performance without C-level pain, it's worth trying. The learning curve is maybe a week if you know C.

Forget the marketing nonsense - here's what Odin gives you that makes your life easier.

Types That Don't Suck

Distinct Types That Prevent Stupid Bugs

Ever passed a user ID where you meant a product ID? Odin's `distinct` keyword fixes this:

UserId :: distinct u64
ProductId :: distinct u64

user_id := UserId(12345)
product_id := ProductId(67890)
// user_id = product_id // Compiler says \"nope\"

Zero runtime cost, but catches the kind of bug that takes two hours to find in production.

Unions That Work Like They Should

Need a value that could be one of several types? Unions in Odin actually make sense:

Result :: union {
    Success: string,
    Error: string,
}

No casting bullshit, no void pointers, no wondering what type you actually have at runtime.

The SOA Magic

Structure of Arrays Without the Pain

Memory Layout Comparison:

• Array of Structures (AOS): [{x,y,z}, {x,y,z}, {x,y,z}...] - scattered memory access
• Structure of Arrays (SOA): {[x,x,x...], [y,y,y...], [z,z,z...]} - cache-friendly layout

Visual Memory Layout:

• AOS Layout: Memory: [x1,y1,z1][x2,y2,z2][x3,y3,z3]... - data scattered
• SOA Layout: Memory: [x1,x2,x3...][y1,y2,y3...][z1,z2,z3...] - data grouped

This is the killer feature. You know how cache misses destroy performance when you're iterating over arrays of structs? Odin fixes it:

// Normal array - data scattered everywhere
particles: [1000]Particle

// SOA array - all X coordinates together, all Y together, etc.
particles_soa: #soa[1000]Particle

Same syntax, same access patterns, but your CPU actually gets the data it needs in cache-friendly chunks. I've seen 2-3x speedups just from adding #soa to hot loops.

Array Programming That Doesn't Suck

Want to multiply two vectors? Just multiply them:

a := [3]f32{1, 2, 3}
b := [3]f32{4, 5, 6}
c := a * b + 1  // Component-wise operations, c = {5, 11, 19}

No operator overloading, no template metaprogramming bullshit, no mysterious performance characteristics. It works like you'd expect and runs fast.

Memory That Makes Sense

The Context System (Actually Useful)

Most languages either give you malloc/free or force garbage collection on you. Odin lets you plug in different allocators without rewriting everything:

context.allocator = my_arena_allocator()
data := make([]int, 1000)  // Uses your allocator
defer delete(data)         // Cleaned up how you want

Need a memory pool for game objects? Want an arena for temporary allocations? Stack allocator for recursive algorithms? Just swap the allocator. Your code doesn't change.

Performance Reality

Odin runs at about 90-95% of C speed. The 5-10% overhead comes from bounds checking (which you can disable), context passing (which you can optimize away), and the compiler not exploiting undefined behavior to squeeze out that last 2%.

That trade-off is worth it. I'd rather have 95% of C's speed with memory safety than 100% of C's speed with random crashes in production.

Collections That Don't Require a PhD

Dynamic Arrays and Hash Maps

C makes you implement your own dynamic arrays and hash tables like it's 1972. Odin includes them:

numbers: [dynamic]int
append(&numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

scores := make(map[string]int)
scores[\"Alice\"] = 95
defer delete(scores)

They work with the allocator system, so you can use arenas, pools, whatever. Just like you'd expect from a language designed this century.

Half-Precision Floats

Need `f16` for GPU work or machine learning? It's built-in. No library hunting, no weird casting:

weights: []f16 = {0.5, 0.25, 0.125}

Generics Without the Complexity

Parametric Types That Work

Need a generic stack? Here's how you do it without template metaprogramming:

Stack :: struct($T: typeid) {
    items: [dynamic]T,
}

push :: proc(stack: ^Stack($T), item: T) {
    append(&stack.items, item)
}

The $T means "compile-time parameter." No angle brackets, no SFINAE, no spending three days debugging why your template won't compile.

Reflection That's Actually Useful

Want to serialize structs automatically? Odin has reflection that doesn't require a PhD:

Foo :: struct {
    x: int    `json:\"x_field\"`,
    y: string `json:\"y_field\"`,
}

field_names := reflect.struct_field_names(Foo)

You can build JSON serializers, ORMs, whatever you need. No external code generation, no build step complexity.

C Interop That Works

Calling C Libraries

Need to use a C library? Just import it:

foreign import libc \"system:c\"
foreign libc {
    printf :: proc(format: cstring, #c_vararg args: ..any) -> c.int ---
}

No binding generators, no header parsers, no mysterious linker errors. It just works.

Included Libraries

The compiler ships with bindings for the stuff you actually need:

• Graphics APIs (OpenGL, Vulkan, DirectX, Metal)
• Audio (SDL2, miniaudio)
• UI frameworks (Dear ImGui)

You can start building games or applications immediately instead of spending a week setting up dependencies.

Let me be honest about the setup process and what you're getting into.

Setup Pain Points

Platform Support

Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Cross-compilation is built-in, which is nice.

The catch: Windows requires Visual Studio or the MSVC toolchain. No MinGW, no clang. You need Microsoft's stuff. This means either installing the full Visual Studio (several GB) or the Build Tools (still annoying but smaller).

If you're on Linux or Mac, it's straightforward. Windows users get to deal with Microsoft's ecosystem whether they want to or not.

The Compiler Does Everything

This is actually nice - no Makefiles, no CMake, no build system hell. Just:

odin run . -out:my_program
odin build . -target:js_wasm32 -out:web_app.wasm

The compiler figures out dependencies, handles linking, does cross-compilation. One tool, no external package managers, no build script complexity.

The downside: it rebuilds everything every time. For small projects this is fine. For larger codebases, you're waiting. Incremental compilation is "planned" but not here yet.

Learning Resources

Documentation Reality

The official docs cover the language basics pretty well. The FAQ is actually useful - explains why they made certain design decisions instead of just listing features.

The package documentation exists but feels incomplete. You'll end up reading source code more often than you'd like. The examples repository is decent for getting started but doesn't cover advanced stuff.

Community

9,000+ people on Discord, which is active. The maintainer (Ginger Bill) actually responds to questions, which is rare for language creators. GitHub issues get addressed reasonably quickly.

The community is small but helpful. Everyone's still figuring things out together, so there's less "RTFM" attitude than with established languages.

Books and Tutorials

Karl Zylinski wrote a book about Odin that covers most of what you need. His intro tutorial is good for getting started. There are some game development guides floating around.

Honestly, the best way to learn is to join the Discord and ask questions while working through the examples.

Development Experience (The Real Story)

IDE Support

The language server (OLS) works but feels basic compared to what you get with mature languages. Autocomplete works most of the time, go-to-definition sometimes works, refactoring tools don't exist.

VS Code extension support is available through the language server. IntelliJ has a plugin that's supposedly better but I haven't tried it. Vim users have syntax highlighting.

Debugging is Broken on Linux

Let me be blunt: debugging on Linux is fucked. GDB doesn't understand the debug info properly, Valgrind gives weird results. The LLVM backend generates debug info that Linux tools don't like.

On Windows, the Visual Studio debugger works fine. On Linux, you're back to printf debugging like it's 1995. This is actively being worked on but it's been "actively being worked on" for a while.

Compilation Speed

Compilation Speed Reality: Odin falls between Go (fast) and C++ (slow). Faster than template-heavy C++, but slower than modern incremental compilers.

The compiler is fast for small projects and gets slower as your codebase grows because it rebuilds everything every time. No incremental compilation yet, which means you're waiting 30+ seconds for builds on larger projects.

Coming from Go or Rust with their fast incremental builds, this feels slow. Coming from C++ template hell, it feels lightning fast.

What You Get Out of the Box

Included Libraries

The compiler comes with the basics:

• Core stuff: file I/O, strings, JSON, networking
• Graphics bindings: OpenGL, Vulkan, DirectX
• Audio: SDL2, miniaudio
• UI: Dear ImGui, microui

It's enough to build games or desktop apps without hunting for libraries. The quality varies - some bindings are solid, others feel incomplete.

Community Ecosystem

The awesome-odin list has maybe 50 projects total. Compare that to Rust's thousands of crates or npm's million packages. You're probably writing more code from scratch or wrapping C libraries yourself.

This isn't necessarily bad - less dependency hell, more understanding of what you're actually using. But if you need mature libraries for everything, look elsewhere.

Should You Use It?

Use Odin If:

You're building games, simulations, or system-level stuff and you're tired of C++ complexity. You want something that compiles fast and runs fast without fighting a borrow checker or garbage collector.

You're okay with being an early adopter. You can debug problems by reading compiler source. You don't need enterprise support.

Don't Use Odin If:

You need rock-solid tooling and mature libraries. You're building web services (just use Go). You require memory safety guarantees (use Rust). You need something that won't change between versions.

You're on Linux and depend heavily on debuggers. You're building something where enterprise support matters.

The Reality

Odin is pre-1.0 software made by one guy who streams development on Twitch. It's used in production by exactly one company (that we know of), though they're successful enough to matter.

If you can live with the limitations, it's genuinely enjoyable to use. The syntax makes sense, the compiler is helpful, and you can actually understand what your code is doing. Whether that's worth the rough edges depends on your project and pain tolerance.