what I need is a language the can directly call c and cross language compile with c so I don't have to write c! especially that nasty pre processor. cause there so much good c libraries that I want to consume and they're only available in c!!!
LLVM languages can all natively link with C code, since any LLVM bytecode can directly call other LLVM bytecode. So Zig, C++, Obj-C, Swift and Rust can all be compiled together.
But C compatibility is everywhere. Almost every language has a FFI (foreign function interface) for C code. C interop shows up in every language because at the end of the day every language needs to be able to talk to the operating system. For example, to read and write files your language needs to call functions in libc (or equivalent). And that library is written in C.
So, Nodejs can call C via has native modules & NAPI. Java can call C through JNI. Ruby has the ffi gem. Python, Luajit, Go, C#, ... the list goes on. They all have a mechanism to call C code.
If you're looking for another language that can live alongside your C code, you can choose any.
However, one typically needs to write out a description of the “C” interface. And if the “C” header files are large it can be a lot of work. For example, I’m unaware of any complete Python bindings to the win32api, user32, kernel32, gdi32.
I use Julia for this. Its ccall facility is very handy for C FFI calls, and Julia itself is very fast and performant with just a bit of type annotation.
