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Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

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Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#451

Maybe this is a nice chance to ask, would you move from Gitlab to Github? I would say no, but some people in my org are proposing it, it seems to me simply because the integration it has with AI tools, but my experience has been worse in Github than with Gitlab.

We self-host GitLab and I would fight a migration to GitHub with every fiber of my being. GitLab is just better in pretty much every way. Especially CI/CD.

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#452
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sentiment (people changing their minds), but the flipside to that is people pleasing. Someone who capitulates under even the slightest pressure is not much better than the person who is set in their ways. The trouble there, of course, is that the motivation for changing (or not changing) one's mind is not always clear, and it's easy to score points from spinning it one way or another.

Engineers are not exactly famous for people-pleasing. Maybe management, but engineering? Maybe some fresh junior? I'm not convinced that the existence of a low-probability event justifies normalizing the regular occurrence of a much more likely (and negative) event, like a belligerent engineer throwing a fit in a design meeting. I'd go as far as to say I'm open to more people-pleasers in engineering. Also, fwiw, if y…

You and I obviously have different experiences because I encounter belligerent engineers much less frequently than ones who are enthusiastic to do what they can, and those who don't want to rock the boat when challenged.

I thought I made a fairly innocuous point, I don't even think I was talking about engineers specifically.

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#453

The edit history of the announcement is quite a ride: > [2025-11-27T02:10:07Z] it’s abundantly clear that the talented folks who used to work on the product have moved on to bigger and better things, with the remaining losers eager to inflict some kind of bloated, buggy JavaScript framework on us in the name of progress [1] > [2025-11-27T14:04:47Z] it’s abundantly clear that the talented folks who used to work on the…

Anger is a mind killer. Build software out of love. Love for engineering, innovation, creation, and love of working with people who feel the same way.

A righteous, passionate anger can be indistinguishable from love. Having and committing to something worth fighting over, however bloody the battles may be, can make a life just a meaningful as one that practices disciplined quiescence, reflection, acceptance, etc. Love is what it is because it must paradoxically accept its opposites; love can be anger, anger can be love. The real mind killer is a pat moralism!

Thus spake zarathustra etc etc..

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#454

Let me be blunt: this looks like a tantrum. Bugs exist, and they're sometimes fixed more slowly than we'd like, but given the size of the GitHub ecosystem this is probably just one of many outstanding bugs. Blaming AI is baseless - not that it couldn't be true, but the conclusion seems to be drawn from a single issue. What does this mean for the Zig project? I haven't heard of Codeberg, they may be great, but for a p…

> Bugs exist, and they're sometimes fixed more slowly than we'd like

Then I think the larger point I'd make is that it's impossible to get anyone to care. We've let tech giants like MS become so large they can essentially just ignore problems with their service, and as a customer, it does not matter that you are paying for it, or how much you pay, you're essentially nothing to MS. You pay not only in the direct cost of the product, but in the indirect costs of any problem with the product will hit you; e.g., here, with VMs just spinning due to really basic bugs. But you're right, nobody ever got fired for using Github.

The big "pro" of moving to a smaller platform to me, I hope, is that they're at least incentivized to help you succeed.

One reason I think most CI scripts should just be — as much as possible — scripts, in the literal sense, is that not only promotes running them locally, it also promotes moving to other CI platforms.

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I completely agree with this. I performed really poorly on this axis. I’m sorry to the Zig community for that. I’ll take my L and get back to working on std.Io and the rest of the roadmap. [1] [1] https://ziggit.dev/t/migrating-from-github-to-codeberg-zig-p...

> I do feel bad for hurting your feelings but I also strongly believe that you should not be proud of working for Microsoft, and particularly on GitHub for the last 5 years. I truly am sorry but you need to be called out. Crocodile tears. https://hachyderm.io/@andrewrk@mastodon.social/1156234452984...

Thank you for sharing this. :(

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the plight of a policy-maker who changes their stance on some issue. They may have changed their mind in light of new information, or evolved their position as a result of deeper reflection, personal experience, or maturation. Opponents will accuse them of "waffling" or "flip-flopping", indicating a lack of reliability or principles (if not straight-up bribery). Elected officials are responsible for expressi…

The demonization of "flip-flopping" is so stupid. Bro, I want my politicians to change their minds when new facts arise or when public sentiment changes. The last thing we need is more dogmatic my-way-or-the-highway politicians that refuse to change their minds about anything.

While I agree with you, I find it hard to argue against the view that politicians are elected for the views they held during their campaign. They may change their mind after being elected, but their constituents that voted for them will not all change their mind simultaneously. To the ones that don't change their mind, it does appear to be a betrayal of their principles. A rational politician would not want to gain that kind of reputation out of pure self-interest.

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero clue what your point is so please help me understand. I was agreeing with your stance and adding my own anecdote that it’s a turnoff with the way those posts were originally formatted. Not people I would want to work with. If you do that’s fine. This is not star wars and simply my own choice as it’s everyone else. I also cannot think of a time in my adult life I wanted to call out a group of people as losers or…

My point is that Linus and the Zig guy are in different categories in my mind. I think it is a bit naive to lump them into the same category. I would definitely classify the tiki torch wielding white nationalists as losers publicly, for example. In fact I have a hard time thinking of a better term for them. It could also apply to the fairly famous liar and criminal, the disgraced Congressman George Santos. Or any per…

I did not realize we were lumping Microsoft engineers alongside white nationalists and pedos. Sure folks like that I can see people using descriptions like that.

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#458
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[..] in a product not people. Insulting people is never a solution.

Sometimes people need to be shocked awake. Reality is harsh, and gentle language doesn't change that.

You’re not mining coal, get real. Either use efficient techniques to make people do the intellectual work necessary to achieve whatever goal you have in mind, or you’re just deluding yourself thinking you’re some kind of “reality expert” while being an asshole, meaning they might still do it, but it would be despite your leadership, not because of it.

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that GH gives you no way to disable PRs. And even if you write in BIG BOLD LETTERS that PRs should be on Codeberg not GH, people get upset and make a fuss over their "ignored" PRs and it ends up making unnecessary headaches for you over and over.

Can do it the @torvalds/linux way and have a bot auto-answer/close PRs. And, to be honest, probably is better to ignore people making a fuss over PRs.

You can ignore them yourself, but people will get annoyed, take to social media, post "this project ignores PRs" "dead project" "they're not inclusive" etc. without context, and those things can gain momentum out of nowhere and have real consequences. And there will goalpost-shifting again, from "just mirror to GH" to "just accept PRs on GH too, why are they being so obstinate" and then further along.

The Linux kernel is unlikely to get those and can survive that even if it does, but your average FOSS project can be severely damaged in terms of reputation, contribution, usage, etc., by this kind of stuff, even if you want to dismiss it as just "social media fluttering". Easier and safer just to keep things clean and clearly at one place.

Re: Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the previous HN article, I recall many a comment talking about how they should change this, leave the politics/negative juju out because it was a bad look for the Zig community. It would appear they listened to that feedback, swallowed their ego/pride and did what was best for the Zig community with these edits. I commend them for their actions in doing what's best for the community at the cost of some personal me…

Zig is the language that was intentionally made to fail and error out on windows carriage returns instead of parsing them like every language ever made. They made a version for windows and then made it not work with every windows text editor. Their answer was to 'get better text editors' or 'make a preprocessing program to strip out carriage returns' or 'don't use windows' (they had a windows executable). This is not…

that's amateur level anti-windows user

much better to put a colon in a filename, or call part of your toolchain "aux.exe"

https://help.interfaceware.com/v6/windows-reserved-file-name...

works like a treat

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