Doesn't this prove that Mitchell Hashimoto is probably the only "good billionaire"?
I thought all billionaires were bad?
Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
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Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#12Adults responding in adult ways. Respect.
Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#13Major props to Mitchell (and his family) for these donations.
Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#14> I use AI heavily. I've written about my AI adoption journey and shipping real features with AI assistance. I'm also quite vocal about remaining rational about its capabilities and frustrated with its negative impacts on open source.
> The point is that I have opinions. Those opinions don't fully align with ZSF's approach. And yet, I have nothing but respect for ZSF: the people, the policies, and the project. Part of what makes the internet and open source great is that projects can be weird and different. They can set unusual boundaries, build their own culture, and pursue quality in ways that won't make sense to everyone.
Mitchell does feel like the adult in the room when other people are having chain-saws and acting irrationally for a lack of better term (for example jared/bun controversy which the post just somewhat touches on)
(Mitchell's tweet about AI psychosis is genuinely influential and is now a pointer to what this phenomenon might be)
I really think him and simon's opinions are somehow decently nuanced opinions on AI that the internet has to offer.
Now glazing of mitchell aside, I am happy that zig foundation gets such amount of money and I am really excited that Zig an independent language is able to get the level of love that it does.
There is a famous talk by the creator of Elm on the economics of independent programming languages and how its hard for them to get sponsored if they aren't already working at a company (Rust was created at Mozilla, Golang was created by Google)
This is a real issue that is true for most of open-source and I am just happy that we are atleast moving slowly towards some good as well. Its an uphill battle with multiple lows but I am happy for the positive changes as it gets as open source does have a special place in my heart as it taught me about privacy and many of your hearts as well.
Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#15It must be pretty satisfying to be able to throw that kind of money at stuff you admire.
I really do not understand how people talk about "Being rich / being a billionaire will make you fundamentally unhappy". Damn if I had all the money I have so many good-willed projects I want to throw money at!
Because the most vocal rich people in this age seem to have an unusual lack of empathy and just being able to enjoy themselves.
Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#16It must be pretty satisfying to be able to throw that kind of money at stuff you admire.
I really do not understand how people talk about "Being rich / being a billionaire will make you fundamentally unhappy". Damn if I had all the money I have so many good-willed projects I want to throw money at!
Yeah I feel the same about people who say they wouldn't know what to do when they retire. I have so many projects! I guess we are just different...
Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#17Doesn't this prove that Mitchell Hashimoto is probably the only "good billionaire"? I thought all billionaires were bad?
I am sure there are some bad billionaires. That moniker is used to demonize them for the most part.
Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#18I have been experimenting with modifying Ghostty lately. It's a well attended codebase and a pleasure to work with, props to Mitchell.
Since Ghostty is written in Zig, I ended up adding native Zig AST support in Dirac (https://github.com/dirac-run/dirac/blob/master/src/services/...)
One thing the has been a little unintuitive is the pattern of all code and tests in single files, which makes the filesizes grow much larger. Also if you're coming from inheritance supported languages, Zig forces a different way of thinking
Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#19What a word of wisdom right there, the bit about internet is beautiful because it's ok to be weird - this is often the opposite on twitter, fb, reddit and many discords where if you have a different opinion you get mobbed by angry comments making one feel worse about their own weirdness.
Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation
#20It must be pretty satisfying to be able to throw that kind of money at stuff you admire.
I really do not understand how people talk about "Being rich / being a billionaire will make you fundamentally unhappy". Damn if I had all the money I have so many good-willed projects I want to throw money at!
It will not make you unhappy. It will just not make you happy. Big difference. The saying "money can't buy happiness" is in fact true no matter how much people want to rationalize the opposite.