System programming has long forced developers to choose between safety and performance, but Zig changes the game with its no hidden control flow philosophy and explicit resource management. If you've struggled with memory leaks, undefined behavior, or cryptic compiler errors, Zig offers an alternative that puts you back in control. Alex Rios, a seasoned software engineer with experience building high-throughput systems across fintech, telecom, and gaming industries, brings his unconventional system design approach and offers insight into Zig, as someone who's seen the limitations of existing languages firsthand. You’ll get to grips with Zig's safety-centric design fundamentals, which will guide you through setting up your app development environment and writing your first programs. You'll then explore Zig's distinctive features in depth, such as explicit error handling, manual memory management, and compile-time execution. The book tackles each topic with a blend of technical depth and wit, ensuring you grasp not just the how but also the why behind Zig's design decisions. By the end of this book, you'll be ready to build a complete application that interacts with the OS, third-party libraries, and C dependencies, as well as engage with Zig's growing community and contribute to its ecosystem.