Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

openmymind.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 329 posts

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#211

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

felixgallo wrote: post #34
aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ai is great at block comments, there is no excuse. Add to that a small anotated usage example written by a human and this whole post would have not existed. Lack of docs also cripple AI from understanding, so future adoption becomes even more bleak. If an api or library developer didnt bother doing even bare minimum docs, my confidence in the library drops aswell. Did they skip testing aswell? Ran the happy path for…

Zig is just getting started and came way after rust.

So they're gonna just finnish up their standard lib and THEN spend a year doing nothing but docs for everything they made?

Just getting started is an even bigger reason to have good docs to clearly communicate how the libraries and APIs work!

I wouldn't even read a push request containing a new function if the creator didn't bother writing a short description and usage clarification.

Getting started is a good excuse for limited libraries or support (same situationwith rust). But lack of even basic docs is not acceptable if you want user adoption.

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#212

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

flohofwoe wrote: post #38
aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they should not have relead the new api at all. Why release half finnished library.

Zig as a whole is half-finished, should it be kept under wraps until it is ready? There's a reason for the 0.x version number, if you can't live with breaking changes, don't use Zig yet. It's as simple as that.

Breaking changes and limited support is one thing. But docs is not something you add at at the end. Lacking docs and Lacking tests is code that should not be released.

They target embedded c market. Limited support and features is expected and common. But being lax with docs and testing is not acceptable.

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#213

Post by BobbyJo »

ioasuncvinvaer wrote: post #168
BobbyJo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because and AI produced it doesn't mean it is slop.

But it is a pretty good signal of low quality.

A signal is something you use to discern something in lue of direct information. In the case of docs, just look at them and if they suck, or are good, it doesn't really matter where they came from. That being said, Ill take AI generated docs over no docs, and no docs is very common.

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#214

Post by uecker »

simonask wrote: post #183
uecker wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most software I use daily on my Linux system is actually written in C and I can't remember any of it crashing in the last decade or so.

Yeah, a ton of engineering hours went into making that happen.

I also write C all the time, and it does not crash. There are certainly memory safety concerns with C, but there are also certainly many programmers that can write C code that does not crash all the time.

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#215

Post by [deleted] »

kristoff_it wrote: post #99
littlestymaar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key problem with Zig nowadays is how much of its community and adoption is driven by anti-Rust sentiment. As a result, while Rust puts beginner onboarding and documentation at the center of its culture, as opposed to the “C neckbeard”'s culture, Zig is going the other way around. (Loris Cro being a key community figure isn't helping in any way, and it's a good remainder that if you don't clear up your community f…

> The key problem with Zig nowadays is how much of its community and adoption is driven by anti-Rust sentiment. As a result, while Rust puts beginner onboarding and documentation at the center of its culture, as opposed to the “C neckbeard”'s culture, Zig is going the other way around. Maybe, or maybe the fact that Zig is a small independent project with limited resources has also something to do with it, and this ki…

[deleted]

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#216

Post by 0x696C6961 »

dns_snek wrote: post #206
0x696C6961 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No documentation" was never presented as an option. Documentation exists. By treating "insufficient docs" as "no docs", you're the one making the false equivalency.

> Documentation exists Where does a beginner go to learn how to use the package manager these days? It looks like they still won't find any clues in the "Learn" section of Zig's website. There's a promising page titled "Zig Build System" in there which references a "Package Management" section, but when you click on it, it doesn't exist!

So in your mind, one missing section means "no documentation"? This isn't the checkmate you think it is, you're just moving goalposts.

But to answer your question, it exists in the comments of the auto-generated build.zig.zon file

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#217

Post by pjmlp »

ksec wrote: post #203
pjmlp wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We actually already have enough safe languages as well. I am a firm beliver in the vision of Xerox PARC for computing, and think the only reason we aren't yet there are politics, lack of funding from management for doing the right thing pushing them into the market, always looking to shareholders and the next quarter, and naturally programming language religion. We were already on the right direction with languages l…

> vision of Xerox PARC for computing What is that in relation to Zig and memory safety? Am I missing some context?

Smalltalk, Interlisp-D, and Mesa/Cedar as the languages for full graphical workstations.

Instead we got UNIX and C.

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#218

Post by pjmlp »

pron wrote: post #200
pjmlp wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We actually already have enough safe languages as well. I am a firm beliver in the vision of Xerox PARC for computing, and think the only reason we aren't yet there are politics, lack of funding from management for doing the right thing pushing them into the market, always looking to shareholders and the next quarter, and naturally programming language religion. We were already on the right direction with languages l…

But software isn't developed for its own sake. It's built to serve some purpose, and it's through its purpose(s) that the selection pressures work. It's like Betamax fans saying that people were wrong to want a longer recording time than better picture quality. It's not enough to say that you like some approach better or to even claim that some untaken path would yield a more desirable outcome. You need to show that…

Ada was impacted by the tooling price and high demands on developer workstations.

Rational started as a company selling Ada Machines, that didn't had such issues with compilation times, but again goes down to reasons I listed why mainstream keeps ignoring such tools until finally governments are stepping in.

Re: I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface

#219

Post by ioasuncvinvaer »

BobbyJo wrote: post #213
ioasuncvinvaer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is a pretty good signal of low quality.

A signal is something you use to discern something in lue of direct information. In the case of docs, just look at them and if they suck, or are good, it doesn't really matter where they came from. That being said, Ill take AI generated docs over no docs, and no docs is very common.

But how do you know if you can trust the docs if they are AI generated?
Post reply on HN