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After experiencing challenges with Rust, the author rewrote their keyboard firmware in the Zig programming language. Despite having no prior experience with Zig, they found it easier to use and more enjoyable compared to Rust. The author highlights the simpler conditional compilation and type handling mechanisms in Zig, which made their development process smoother. Zig's smaller and more consistent language design allowed the author to be more productive with less mental overhead. This shift provided a new perspective on Rust's complexity and raised appreciation for Zig's simplicity and efficiency.

Why I rewrote my Rust keyboard firmware in Zig: consistency, mastery, and fun

Zig is “better C”, period. It wasn’t created as a competitor for C++, Rust or other “big” languages.
As to conditional compiling: once you discover you can source module from arbitrary file name, hardware unification becomes trivial.
<pre><code class="language-rust">#[cfg(feature = &quot;nrf52840&quot;)]
#[path = &quot;hw_nrf52840.rs&quot;]
pub mod hw;

#[cfg(feature = &quot;nrf52833&quot;)]
#[path = &quot;hw_nrf52833.rs&quot;]
pub mod hw;
</code></pre>

Article from 2021, but very interesting.