>Which of course causes issues when languages with more proper strings interact with C but there you go.

Is is an issue of "more proper strings" or just languages trying to have their cake and eat it too? have their sense of a string and C interoperability. I think this is were we see the strength of Zig, it's strings are designed around and extend the C idea of string instead of just saying our way is better and we are just going to blame C for any friction.

My standard disclaimer comes into play here, I am not a programmer and very much a humanities sort, I could be completely missing what is obvious. Just trying to understand better.

Edit: That was not quite right, Zig has its string literal for C compatibility. There is something I am missing here in my understanding of strings in the broader sense.