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Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

raymyers.org

751–760 of 862 posts

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#751

I think like most people, I don’t have a problem with Andrew “calling a spade a spade,” even if I find his reasoning motivated. The bigger problem with the post is that it talks out of both ends of the mouth: it’s clearly meant as a personal attack, but also insists that it isn’t. When I read the post, my first thought was that I wouldn’t want to build things in Zig, because any technical decision I make, good or bad…

It might be helpful to read the latest revision of Andrew's post, which may address this concern for you. It received several revisions: https://github.com/andrewrk/andrewkelley.me/commits/master/p...

That's even worse.

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#752
post #192
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now if that's further migrated to safe Rust, put into production & gathered feedback from lots of users, yes then you have something. Obviously they have to start somewhere if they want to get to safe rust with a considerable degree of battle testing. So they decided to start with just a transliteration and go from there. I think the Zig people are really just concerned that maybe Zig itself is a DOA language becau…

> Just search "segfault" on the Zig issue tracker and you'll see why people are starting to be skeptical of the future utility of such a language in the face of something like Rust. Zig has 110 open "segfault" issues [1] versus Rust's 175 open "segfault" issues [2]. So, by your logic, Rust is also bad. edit: I was just trying to point out that the parent's "just search segfault" argument is lazy. Also, Zig is still i…

To make a better comparison, you have to add up Zig's issues on GitHub that weren't brought over and abandoned.

That would be Zig's 700 or so Codeberg issues + the 2,700 or so GitHub issues.

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#753
post #277

What I have been missing in all this debate is substance. I don't care that Bun was ported to Rust; I don't care that Andrew wrote a hit piece about it; I don't care that Anthropic sells shovels in the gold rush. What I do care about is technical details. Jared shared some motivation as to why they ported to Rust, and I think they look valid (even if provided with sparse evidence). But I have not seen any sort of ref…

The facts as presented from the Bun side show a lack of technical merit for the rewrite. This shouldn't be surprising, because rewrites are bad engineering , in most cases. The Bun project was started in Zig by someone with a lack of experience using the language, despite the massive scope and complexity, and was effectively a rewrite from another language in the first place. From the Bun post: > Bun started as a lin…

> rewrites are bad engineering, in most cases.

I think this situation is a referendum on whether that is still true—or, if it is true, whether the proportions on “most” have changed significantly due to AI.

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#754
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just search "segfault" on the Zig issue tracker and you'll see why people are starting to be skeptical of the future utility of such a language in the face of something like Rust. Zig has 110 open "segfault" issues [1] versus Rust's 175 open "segfault" issues [2]. So, by your logic, Rust is also bad. edit: I was just trying to point out that the parent's "just search segfault" argument is lazy. Also, Zig is still i…

You're not seriously out here posting raw numbers without considering the base rate are you

I think the open to close ratio needs to be provided in any such comparison. It would arguably give a better indication of which project is doing a better job at addressing incoming user issues and bug fixes.

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#755
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Not sure what you mean, I have one account. Did someone else express this opinion?

What opinion? Ad-personam attacks against the author and not the actual content of the link?

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#756

I think like most people, I don’t have a problem with Andrew “calling a spade a spade,” even if I find his reasoning motivated. The bigger problem with the post is that it talks out of both ends of the mouth: it’s clearly meant as a personal attack, but also insists that it isn’t. When I read the post, my first thought was that I wouldn’t want to build things in Zig, because any technical decision I make, good or bad…

I appreciate having an opinion vs a bunch of safe words saying nothing. Most CEO communication probably isn't even written by them and has a person-less touch.

It's totally fine to get a negative reaction and avoid the project. It's called having human emotions, which is actually healthy. Getting feedback is how you learn and grow as a person.

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#757
post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vlang is a ridiculous project With over 37,500 stars, over 2,300 forks, 826 contributors, books written on it (in Japanese and Portuguese, besides English), and a Wikipedia page; vlang is clearly a significant and successful open-source project. > entirely driven by hype People can plainly see Zig (and other HN pushed languages) directly engaging in marketing propaganda and hype (with HN accounts clearly stating th…

I don't see any hate in these references. Perhaps just truths you don't want to hear. I've seen your name pop up multiple times in past conversations about V in response to anything less than positive. What's your involvement with the language to watch its discussions so ardently?

> I don't see any hate

People know what jealousy, slander, and unprofessional behavior are. Including how the V project is treated, regardless if certain others pretend not to or try to blank out others for noticing.

> What's your involvement with the language

Just responding to the comments of others, like the truthful one made by f-serif.

Not part of any V organization, just use the language (and some others). Which is more than I can say for a number of accounts where their profiles clearly say they are directly part of or work for the Zig organization.

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#758

I think like most people, I don’t have a problem with Andrew “calling a spade a spade,” even if I find his reasoning motivated. The bigger problem with the post is that it talks out of both ends of the mouth: it’s clearly meant as a personal attack, but also insists that it isn’t. When I read the post, my first thought was that I wouldn’t want to build things in Zig, because any technical decision I make, good or bad…

Andrew didn't make the hit piece out of nowhere, unprovoked. Jared, using Anthropic's multi-billion dollar microphone, painted Zig in a bad light with their first (denied) attempt to merge a vibecoded PR to improve Zig's build times. Then very shortly after that failed attempt, about 11 days later I gather, Jared (again with help from Anthropic's very big microphone) made public the Zig-to-Rust port. So unless you're…

What exactly is Anthropic's multi-billion dollar microphone here?

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#759
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A drum I've been banging increasingly often recently is that having friction and time to work ideas over in your mind adds huge amounts of value. Vibe coded projects have this very specific, well, vibe to them where you can clearly see that the lack of time to digest has allowed the person to not challenge their own worst impulses. You can see it in the feature bloat, the lack of depth and polish in core features and…

Yes and no. Let's first settle on the definition of vibecoding so that we're not miscommunicating over definitions. I'm using the one that seems the median definition nowadays: >95% of the code written by LLMs, As you said it's about time invested in thinking about it, yes. But remember that even pre-AI >90% of software got never used, it was dead on arrival. Look up "success rate of software projects in business". Y…

I hate to be the guy arguing semantics, but is that the median definition? Everyone I know defines vibe coding as ignoring the actual output code completely and evaluating the result by how it behaves under test. Non-coders vibe code by default, because they don't understand how to read the code in the first place. Developers vibe code when they just trust the LLM to have been right about the behavior they don't explicitly test for. Vibe coding is the act of ignoring most possible friction, for better or worse.

Re: Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

#760
post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone pays your living, I’m guessing. But I trust that you aren’t unduly motivated by their interests, because you’re a human with your own thoughts and opinions. I ask you kindly to grant me the same presumption.

Nah, I would not comment on things related to my employer's business because that might mean they could sue me for damages or insider trading or all sort of things. I'm sure the same applies to you.

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