The first two I'd mention are D and Nim. I only wrote ~10k LoC with these languages (so they weren't really for me) but they strike me as similar to Swift. They both optionally support an automatic memory management strategy like GC, (whereas Swift as ARC) and there is great effort put into metaprogramming facilities. Both D and Nim compile much faster than Swift, and offer better error messages than the Swift compiler in the presence of complex generic expressions. In the context of the parent post (games) Nim is especially well equipped with a package ecosystem. D seems a touch less lively, but has a following.

For myself, I prefer the Odin programming language. Full disclosure, I've been donating to Odin for about a year now after happily using it for more than 5. After writing "Orthodox C++" for a while, I stumbled on Odin and feel as if it was made specifically for me. The compiler is fast, and the language has been something like a tutor or mentor for me, as it applies friction in places where I usually waste time. It would take some hand-holding as a first-language though, as some error messages relating to overloading/generics would seem obtuse to a beginner.

EDIT: I've recently been exposed to the Raku language, and it strikes me as sort of a ... dynamic version of Swift? It's jammed full of functionality, with an emphasis on being able to design syntax a-la DSL.

Also I'd add that Swift is sort of part of this new litter of "no-paradigm languages" like Kotlin and C#. I don't think Kotlin can actually dip as low-level as C# and Swift can, though. At least I think only C# and Swift have some kind of safety-wrapped user-level pointer "thing."

Because Apple won't fix Swift's abysmal compile times, and there are languages with similar or better ergonomics without that flaw.

For control-flow we've got the postfix operators: `or_return`, `or_break`, `or_continue` For alternative values we've got postfix `or_else`.

Considering how much I enjoy Odin I should probably entertain using Absail for my next C++ project.

You should check out the gamedev scene. It's soft real-time, and yet dearIMGUI is the choice for tooling. Immediate-mode is an API-design, not the implementation details. All Immediate-mode GUIs retain data some data, and for that reason they each have their own APIs for retaining data in various capacities. Usually something really simple like hashing and component-local state.

> This works for simple apps, utilities, and demos/mvps. Not great for actual applications.

Respectfully, I don't think you're informed on this. Probably the most responsive debugger out there is RAD Debugger and it's built with an IMGUI.

All I’ve got to add is that GLM-5 is actually just the team at Z.ai getting started. I’m really bullish on this.