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About LLMs at Zig Days

kristoff.it

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Re: About LLMs at Zig Days

#61

Post by keybored »

sharperguy wrote: post #34
myth_drannon wrote: post #14

LLMs are just pushed by everyone at us, people just can't stand hearing about it anymore even if they use it and find it helpful. It's like at PyCon2026 the keynote was about LLM, and people were just leaving in the middle, including GvR.

It's hard to avoid the topic when it literally redefines what it means to create software. If I'm using it to create some piece of software, then I turn around and say "I wrote this" am I even being truthful? But if I'm trying to avoid mentioning LLMs what other wording could I use?

Have you tried creating the software yourself?

Re: About LLMs at Zig Days

#62

Post by coldtea »

sharperguy wrote: post #34
myth_drannon wrote: post #14

LLMs are just pushed by everyone at us, people just can't stand hearing about it anymore even if they use it and find it helpful. It's like at PyCon2026 the keynote was about LLM, and people were just leaving in the middle, including GvR.

It's hard to avoid the topic when it literally redefines what it means to create software. If I'm using it to create some piece of software, then I turn around and say "I wrote this" am I even being truthful? But if I'm trying to avoid mentioning LLMs what other wording could I use?

>It's hard to avoid the topic when it literally redefines what it means to create software.

It redefines it because its shoved down our throats as redefining it.

Re: About LLMs at Zig Days

#63

Post by codethief »

jdlshore wrote: post #4

For those who aren’t aware, as I wasn’t, this is coming from the “VP of Community” at the Zig Foundation. So the proposal to soft ban LLMs at Zig Day meetups seems like it has a bit more weight than if it was some random community member. (I’m not a member of the community, so not fully aware of the dynamics.)

I had the pleasure to talk to Loris about this topic just last week and I've liked his take very much.

His point is not coming from a place of LLM demonization. He very much acknowledges their usefulness, especially in a business context, e.g. for implementing yet another standard CRUD application and for shipping all the other "average" (in quality) business features quickly.

His point is a different one entirely: Say Andrew Kelley is attending the Zig Day. Why would you ask an LLM about a Zig programming problem you're struggling with instead of learning from the man himself? There's simply no LLM as knowledgeable about Zig as Andrew and the other people working on it or with it on the daily.

In other words: Zig Days are an opportunity for people to learn from each other and to spend time together (= the "Community" in "VP of Community"), and LLM are diminishing this opportunity.

Besides, Zig itself is mainly a language for people who care not just that a problem is solved but also about how it's being solved. ("Create software you can love.") While LLMs don't prevent anyone from doing so, they make it much more appealing to just vibe-code everything and not look too closely at the implementation.

Re: About LLMs at Zig Days

#64

Post by tolerance »

kristoff_it wrote: post #47
tolerance wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't "soft ban" still a bit harsh? Not necessarily. The take is reasonable but I'm curious about who could be bold enough to actually talk about or disclose their use of LLMs during these events.

The whole reason for this blog post is because discussion about LLMs does happen already (to the point of being a bit suffocating). see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48314145

It's funny (or sad) how I read this as an address about pro-LLM speech when "talking about LLMs" doesn't have to be just that.

I appreciate the clarification.

Re: About LLMs at Zig Days

#67

Post by abalashov »

skeledrew wrote: post #37
nvme0n1p1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, organizers can do whatever they want. Their event, their rules. If you put in the work to run a Python meetup, you are free to ban discussion of tomatoes if you really want to. Conversely, those with tomato psychosis are free to avoid your event if they truly can't survive a few hours without talking about tomatoes.

Given your example, how exactly would tomatoes be relevant to Python?

That's the point. They aren't.

Re: About LLMs at Zig Days

#68

Post by [deleted] »

skeledrew wrote: post #37
nvme0n1p1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, organizers can do whatever they want. Their event, their rules. If you put in the work to run a Python meetup, you are free to ban discussion of tomatoes if you really want to. Conversely, those with tomato psychosis are free to avoid your event if they truly can't survive a few hours without talking about tomatoes.

Given your example, how exactly would tomatoes be relevant to Python?

[deleted]

Re: About LLMs at Zig Days

#69

Post by altairprime »

skeledrew wrote: post #37
nvme0n1p1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, organizers can do whatever they want. Their event, their rules. If you put in the work to run a Python meetup, you are free to ban discussion of tomatoes if you really want to. Conversely, those with tomato psychosis are free to avoid your event if they truly can't survive a few hours without talking about tomatoes.

Given your example, how exactly would tomatoes be relevant to Python?

Let me introduce you to the HomeAssistant gardening community, and note that the very first Dashboard screenshot shown opens with two separate entire beds of tomato plants:

https://www.briandorey.com/post/pi-pico-lora-remote-soil-mon...

If one is leading a Python (or a Zig!) meetup and has an aversive reaction to tomatoes, and said meetup has been all up about gardening for the past three events, it’s very plausible to imagine them soft-banning people from bringing tomato plants to show and tell. Sure, they’ll be teased mercilessly about it at first, and some jerk might troll them about it and get the boot, but ultimately it’s just an outlier human foible that will be accommodated with mostly grace and humor. And then there will almost certainly also, immediately, form a Tomato Cabal who goes out of their way to farm tomatoes with Python/Zig while specifically keeping it a wink-nod secret that they’re doing so, and someday the organizer will discover this and laugh in spite of their disgust and give the cabal an honorary Tomato Day event where the cabal leads that day’s proceedings and the usual leader stays home and watches desert movies and eats chips and salsa with secret, vicious glee and never tells another living soul.

Healthy human BOFs are the best form of social ever :D

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