Open-source Zig book • Hacker News Board

Re: Open-source Zig book

#51

Post by tredre3 » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

the-anarchist wrote: post #31

jasonjmcghee wrote: post #2

So despite this... > The Zigbook intentionally contains no AI-generated content—it is hand-written, carefully curated, and continuously updated to reflect the latest language features and best practices. I just don't buy it. I'm 99% sure this is written by an LLM. Can the author... Convince me otherwise? > This journey begins with simplicity—the kind you encounter on the first day. By the end, you will discover a dif…

Doesn't mean that the author might not use AI to optimise legibility. You can write stuff yourself and use an LLM to enhance the reading flow. Especially for non-native speakers it is immensely helpful to do so. Doesn't mean that the content is "AI-generated". The essence is still written by a human.

> Doesn't mean that the author might not use AI to optimise legibility.

I agree that there is a difference between entirely LLM-generated, and LLM-reworded. But the statement is unequivocal to me:

> The Zigbook intentionally contains no AI-generated content—it is hand-written

If an LLM was used in any fashion, then this statement is simply a lie.

Re: Open-source Zig book

#52

Post by cultofmetatron » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:37 PM UTC

testdelacc1 wrote: post #18

gooodvibes wrote: post #10

[flagged]

Even if what you say is true, people make bets on new tech all the time. You show up early so you can capture mindshare. If Zig becomes mainstream then this could be the standard book that everyone recommends. Not just that, it’s more likely the language succeeds if it has good learning materials - that’s an outcome the author would love.

> people make bets on new tech all the time. You show up early so you can capture mindshare.

I got on the ground floor with elixir. got my startup built on it. now we have 3 fulltime engineers working on elixir fulltime. None of that would have happenned if I looked at a young language and said "its not used in the real world"

Re: Open-source Zig book

#53

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

gooodvibes wrote: post #45

cultofmetatron wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ghostty and bun aren't real world enough for you?

They're not. It's real world when there's a market for paying Zig jobs, not when you can list a few github repos that use it.

[deleted]

Re: Open-source Zig book

#54

Post by rishabhaiover » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:39 PM UTC

gooodvibes wrote: post #10

[flagged]

There's an actual production grade database written in zig: https://tigerbeetle.com/

Re: Open-source Zig book

#55

Post by geysersam » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #48

The book claims it’s not written with the help of AI, but the content seems so blatantly AI-generated that I’m not sure what to conclude, unless the author is the guy OpenAI trained GPT-5 on: > Learning Zig is not just about adding a language to your resume. It is about fundamentally changing how you think about software. “Not just X - Y” constructions. > By Chapter 61, you will not just know Zig; you will understand…

Clearly your perception of what is AI generated is wrong. You can't tell something is AI generated only because it uses "not just X - Y" constructions. I mean, the reason AI text often uses it is because it's common in the training material. So of course you're going to see it everywhere.

Re: Open-source Zig book

#56

Post by smj-edison » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:43 PM UTC

tredre3 wrote: post #43

shuraman7 wrote: post #40

It's really hard to believe this isn't AI generated, but today I was trying to use the HTTP server from std after the 0.15 changes, couldn't figure out how it's supposed to work until I've searched repos in Github. LLM's couldn't figure it out as well, they were stuck in a loop of changing/breaking things even further until they arrived at the solution of using the deprecated way. so I guess this is actually handwrit…

I've had the same experience as you with Zig. I quite love the idea of it Zig but the undocumented churn is a bit much. I wish they had auto generated docs that reflect the current state of the stdlib, at least. Even if it just listed the signatures with no commentary. I was trying to solve a simple problem but Google, the official docs, and LLMs were all out of date. I eventually found what I needed in Zig's commit…

Wait, doesn't `zig std` launch the autogenerated docs?

Re: Open-source Zig book

#57

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Open-source Zig book

#58

Post by smj-edison » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:49 PM UTC

CathalMullan wrote: post #46

jasonjmcghee wrote: post #2

So despite this... > The Zigbook intentionally contains no AI-generated content—it is hand-written, carefully curated, and continuously updated to reflect the latest language features and best practices. I just don't buy it. I'm 99% sure this is written by an LLM. Can the author... Convince me otherwise? > This journey begins with simplicity—the kind you encounter on the first day. By the end, you will discover a dif…

Pretty clear it's all AI. The @zigbook account only has 1 activity prior to publishing this repo, and that's an issue where they mention "ai has made me too lazy": https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/272725

After reading the first five chapters, I'm leaning this way. Not because of a specific phrase, but because the pacing is way off. It's really strange to start with symbol exporting, then moving to while loops, then moving to slices. It just feels like a strange order. The "how it works" and "key insights" also feel like a GPT summarization. Maybe that's just a writing tic, but the combination of correct grammar with bad pacing isn't something I feel like a human writer has. Either you have neither (due to lack of practice), or both (because when you do a lot of writing you also pick up at least some ability to pace). Could be wrong though.

Re: Open-source Zig book

#59

Post by fifhtbtbf » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Open-source Zig book

#60

Post by johnfn » Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 9:55 PM UTC

geysersam wrote: post #55

johnfn wrote: post #48

The book claims it’s not written with the help of AI, but the content seems so blatantly AI-generated that I’m not sure what to conclude, unless the author is the guy OpenAI trained GPT-5 on: > Learning Zig is not just about adding a language to your resume. It is about fundamentally changing how you think about software. “Not just X - Y” constructions. > By Chapter 61, you will not just know Zig; you will understand…

Clearly your perception of what is AI generated is wrong. You can't tell something is AI generated only because it uses "not just X - Y" constructions. I mean, the reason AI text often uses it is because it's common in the training material. So of course you're going to see it everywhere.

Find me some text from pre-AI that uses so many of these constructions in such close proximity if it’s really so easy - I don’t think you’ll have much luck. Good authors have many tactics in their rhetorical bag of tricks. They don’t just keep using the same one over and over.