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Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke

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

#831

Post by andsoitis »

vga1 wrote: post #657
andsoitis wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's gonna be amazing products made with LLM You think more amazing than what was made without LLM?

There is going to be something that would not have existed without LLM because there wouldn't have been enough resources to create it before. Probably already is. Some of it will be amazing, although most of it probably not. Example: Qobuz has no official Linux client, but there's https://qbz.lol/ which it seems to me is mostly vibecoded. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well and can do some fancy stuff like bit…

I hear you, and those are good applications of LLMs: create something that didn't make economic sense before.

But I'm asking something slightly different. I'm asking about something that's amazing, not due to a different economic calculus, but something that's AMAZING that would not be possible to create by humans.

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

#832

Post by brainless »

witx wrote: post #811
brainless wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if you mean good, bad or ugly but yeah this username is perhaps with me since 1998. I used to hang around in MIT, Stanford and many other Uni IRC rooms. I was this odd username from a far away city. Tim Berners-Lee once asked me about the real person behind the username. I almost shat my pants but somehow I answered. I am sure you have a great story for your username and the blank HN profile too.

It was a tongue in cheek joke. Looking at your profile it's clear you're heavily invested in passing the idea that "AI is going to take our jobs" as if you have some money in the game ...

Yes, I know that is how it would seem in this ultra-capitalistic world. But no. I am a believer, follower of Sci-Fi and a dreamer. I see AI as way to tear down structures - "When everyone is super, no one will be".

The next 10 years of software can either centralize power, like we have done in the 10 years past. Or, we could open up for everyone - every mom and pop business can run their business with the best software - their own workflow.

I do not believe in the systems that have led us here and I see AI as a chance to rectify. I live in rural India, by choice. I am 44 and kicking. Have a farm, dream life and a chance to bring change I have dearly wanted - true empowerment. Big Cos/SaaS have brainwashed people away from what software for people could have been. Time to change that.

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

#833

Post by politician »

TeriyakiBomb wrote: post #244
sph wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get abandoned because they get generated on a whim. Sunk cost fallacy can be a feature: if you have spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears on a project, you are more likely to push it through adversity and the doldrums that inevitably one will encounter. If all it took was one of those momentarily brilliant ideas and a prompt on Claude to produce something, there is no attachment whatsoever to it. Speaking as th…

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…

Ugh. Most of this thread can be resolved by realizing that Teriyaki Bomb is using the word "friction" as a synonym for "constraints" and not "toil".

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

#834

Post by capr »

apsurd wrote: post #597
hughw wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this too but it's very hard to argue myself out of adding features like mad. Features, features, features. Tech debt may be an illusion, if the LLM can keep maintaining it all.

features with theoretical use incur cost up front and yield no value. tech debt is only part of the cost, the other is opportunity cost of writing the OPTION. There’s really no good reason to create theoretical use features. Thinking of software from finance and derivatives pov really blew my mind. here’s the article, it has AI smell but it’s short and the mental model is good: https://newsletter.kentbeck.com/p/the-c…

That analogy works for app code, it doesn't work for technologies, library, frameworks, algorithms. Why build a compiler for this app? YAGNI! makes no sense.

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

#836

Post by ajpikul »

The only reason we're paying attention to this is because of the drama.

The fact that rust is likely more interesting than zig (which is also interesting) is indictated by community size (and other signs like linux kernel inclusion).

The fact that anthropic is very likely overselling their timeline and max-utility for an IPO is generally well accepted as well.

Also that us tech bros are somewhat annoying is also well understood.

But who doesn't love a good street fight?

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

#837

Post by lunar_mycroft »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #735
lunar_mycroft wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also do one by using `unsafe` liberally, especially if you're flexible about actually upholding rust's rules (as the bun team just did). But either way, you're still stuck with a code base that's going to need extensive refactoring if you want to actually take advantage of rust.

> You can also do one by using `unsafe` liberally, especially if you're flexible about actually upholding rust's rules (as the bun team just did As in, they did not, which I can prove by using Miri and seeing hundreds of errors.

I didn't say they made a good, safe port. I literally said the opposite ("especially if you're flexible about actually upholding rust's rules"). You can get a line by line port to compile by just wrapping the parts that violate rust's ownership rules in `unsafe`. You won't have fixed the problem, and it won't be memory safe, but you can do it.

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

#838

Post by samspot »

TeriyakiBomb wrote: post #244
sph wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get abandoned because they get generated on a whim. Sunk cost fallacy can be a feature: if you have spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears on a project, you are more likely to push it through adversity and the doldrums that inevitably one will encounter. If all it took was one of those momentarily brilliant ideas and a prompt on Claude to produce something, there is no attachment whatsoever to it. Speaking as th…

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…

Alternatively, you can easily add the bloat, discover if it has real value, and then strip it without the bad feeling of having sunk countless hours creating it. Vibe coding is excellent for making the first prototype to throw away.

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

#839

Post by LtWorf »

slopinthebag wrote: post #631
LtWorf wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funding and owning something makes you accountable yes, that's how it works normally.

For what, rewriting an open source project in a new language? It’s insane that in 2026 this is seen as controversial.

No, for repeatedly using such low quality rewrites as marketing for your upcoming IPO, to convince people to evaluate your company more.

It's insane that in 2026 we are still falling for these tricks really.

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

#840

Post by theshrike79 »

overgard wrote: post #702
edude03 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liken it to dieting. If your only goal is to be certain weight, then learning how to cook, learning how to portion, learning to make a meal plan, learning about macro nutrients is all "friction" now that we have GLPs. And maybe using a meal prep service reduces some "unnecessary friction" but you still would have to learn a bunch of useful skills along the way. Concretely, If your only goal is to produce "software"…

Nitpick, but this is misunderstanding GLPs (I'm on them). If you don't change your diet and your habits, yeah, you'll temporarily lose weight but it'll come right back when you're off it AND you'll lose a lot of muscle. You kinda still need to do "the right things", it's not a magic cure all. (Of course, same thing can be said of AI).

GLP's don't make you lose muscle. Losing weight without exercising does.

You'll get the exact same muscle loss with a CICO calculation weight loss.

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