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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 a

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 from bullies from the beginning, they will turn your entire community to a miserable place. And that's a shame because from what I've seen, Andrew Kelley seems to be a very cool guy in addition to being very smart).

bnolsen 1y ago
The anti rust sentiment in large part is dissatisfaction with rust itself. Ziglang.org lists 3 principles of zig: no hidden control flow, no hidden memory allocations, no macros. This is not anti rust for the sake of being anti rust, this is anti lots of popular languages, and I personally like it.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  That isn't “anti Rust” at all, it's just a different set of trade offs, and it's fine that it attracts developers who don't like the set of trade offs Rust make. What's not very good are the people who don't like Rust, who are uneasy with Rust is eating the system programming world, and are now pushing Zig as the champion of the resistance about Rust. It happens a lot, unfortunately.
pjmlp 1y ago
Not only, the whole handmade movement puts me off. It is the anti-intelectualism from Go culture, gone wild against C++, Rust, Swift, anything modern, or even tools, using game engines versus doing the whole computer from scratch for a game.
- kristoff_it 1y ago
  Zig is not really a handmade project, case in point both Andrew and I are blocked on social media by the two gods of the handmade movement (casey and john) and, according to their die hard fans, Andrew gave a talk at the last handmade conference that caused the community to split apart (the reality is a bit more complex than this, but Andrew's talk is certainly one that you wouldn't see at their new "better software" conference). Andrew's talk is here (second event after the two people chatting while sitting on chairs): https://handmadecities.com/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/ https://handmadecities.com/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/ Here you can see a particularly funny (but also sad) reaction by one of these people https://drive.proton.me/urls/MB1EB4EF34#YZdvmAvBFp1C https://drive.proton.me/urls/MB1EB4EF34#YZdvmAvBFp1C > using game engines versus doing the whole computer from scratch for a game That said you are doing yourself a disservice if you think that not using an engine to make a game is a form of "anti-intellectualism".
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Thanks for clarification. Depends on the attitude, not using an engine, because one wants to learn the whole stack, makes all sense, after all people need to learn how to make game engines, if nothing else for the next generation. Not using one out of spite, because we do everything handmade over here attitude, is a completely different matter.
  - brodo 1y ago
    Here is another comment on the whole Handmade-Kerfuffle from one of the presenters: https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/2025.html https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/2025.html (the entry under 19b) It seems this was a right vs. left (or liberal) split.
    - deagle50 1y ago
      more like old school lib vs "new left"
  - secondary_op 1y ago
    Unfortunately for everyone, people like you tie their entire identity and income to specific technologies, movements, or communities—becoming deeply tribal in the process. When something or someone undermines their sense of security—even with constructive criticism—they react defensively, often to the point of ignorance. All this, combined with the fact that Zig, at best is still in beta quality and at worst amounts to a massive waste of everyone’s time, makes it unsurprising that people block you and simply refuse to engage with your loud community efforts, endless churn and crust tied to beta quality compiler. > Zig is not really a handmade project, case in point both Andrew and I are blocked on social media by the two gods of the handmade movement (casey and john) and, according to their die hard fans, Andrew gave a talk at the last handmade conference that caused the community to split apart (the reality is a bit more complex than this, but Andrew's talk is certainly one that you wouldn't see at their new "better software" conference). > Andrew's talk is here (second event after the two people chatting while sitting on chairs): https://handmadecities.com/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/ https://handmadecities.com/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/ > Here you can see a particularly funny (but also sad) reaction by one of these people https://drive.proton.me/urls/MB1EB4EF34#YZdvmAvBFp1C https://drive.proton.me/urls/MB1EB4EF34#YZdvmAvBFp1C Regarding the links you posted: In the first, at 2:30:40, Andrew Kelly publicly calls out a specific author of a competing technology in exaggerated, caricatured, and fabricated context. In the second video, yet another author of a yet another competing technology directly points out this unapologetic and concerning behavior on Andrew Kelly’s part. And now you—“VP of Community @ Zig Software Foundation”—assert your “righteous” stance by sharing these videos, while ironically pointing out that some of those same individuals (of competing technologies fame) block you on social media. Too bad that doing your job probably means being as loud and visible online as possible to spread the molecules of Zig no matter what.
- baranul 1y ago
  If you didn't know, Casey has made comments on a YouTube video, that he does not like Zig. His review of Zig, was that it's a language that he rather not use and would not recommend.
kristoff_it 1y ago
> 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 kind of shaming says less about Zig than you'd think. When I first joined the Zig project, Zig was still using the bootstrap compiler written in C++ that would not free memory (it took more than 4GB to compile the Zig compiler). Some people at the time were asking us to prioritize work on the package manager but Andrew rightfully wanted to prioritize rewriting the compiler instead. In hindsight this was the obviously right decision: a package manager implies that one can very easily add an order of magnitude more code to their project, stressing the performance of the compiler. If we had not prioritized core infrastructure over giving people what they wanted faster, today we would have people complaining that adding a single dependency to their project makes the build impossible to complete. The Zig project has a huge scope and we are a small independent organization. This makes us extremely nimble and efficient, but it does mean that we need to do things in the order that makes the most sense for the project, not for what the public wants. The fact that we develop in the open doesn't mean that the language is ready yet. People that already have the required domain knowledge (and who have a tolerance for breaking changes) will have the opportunity to be early adopters if they wish to do so, others will have to wait for Zig to become more mature. And we do make this clear in releases and all forms of public communication. We have gone a long way since the bootstrap compiler days, but we are still missing key infrastructure: - we have a x86_64 custom backend but aarch64 is not complete yet - incremental compilation is showing that we can get instant rebuilds of large projects, but it has missing features and it doesn't work on all platforms yet - we need native fuzzing since AFL keeps regressing everytime a new version of LLVM comes out - for the longest time we haven't had a strong I/O story, now we're finally working on it The time for paving the road for a new generation of programmers will come (it's in the ZSF mission statement btw), but first we need to finish the plumbing.
- adwn 1y ago
  > […] Zig was still using the bootstrap compiler written in C++ that would not free memory […] That sounds strange. Modern C++ requires very little manual memory management, at least when you're writing something high-level like a compiler. C++11 had been out for years when development on Zig started. Were they writing C++ old-school as C-with-classes and malloc() everywhere? Why not use a more appropriate language for the first prototype of a compiler for a brand new language?
ksec 1y ago
That is actually a valid point on expectation given the attracted people's demographic. I will hopefully wait for comments from Ghostty, Bun or Tigerbeetle Devs. On another point that is wroth mentioning, I hope Andrew will at least put it out publicly, IMO Zig isn't Anti-Rust. But it did attract the type of people who are not too happy with Rust. I dont remember a single time Zig came out to bash anything about Rust. It isn't Anti anything at all. Its goal is to be a decent C replacement as very high level assembly languages, aiming at Data Oriented Design with some interesting features, and extremely fast compilation speed. ( Which was the reason why I was interested in it in the first place. I miss Turbo Pascal ) Zig reminds me of the old school, traditional projects. It isn't perfect for everything, it never claims to be, if you like it, use it. If not, there are plenty of options out there. At least Ghostty Dev seems to be enjoying it almost every day.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  I don't think Andrew is anti-Rust. But Loris, whose hn profile says he's “vp of community of the zig software foundation” is as anti-Rust as you can get: he's pathologically obsessed by Rust and spent significant amount of energy outright insulting Rust maintainers here or on Twitter (when he's not buzzy writing anti-Rust rant on his blog). But as you say, there's no reason why Zig ought to be anti-Rust, both language are are fresh attempts at low level programming, both highly opinionated and with very different philosophies and trade offs and both language can cohabit peacefully (I've heard good things about using the Zig toolchain for cross compilation of C dependencies in rust projects, so the existence of Zig already has had a positive impact on the Rust ecosystem).
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - geodel 1y ago
    Huh, it all started with a Rust developer ceaselessly picking on Zig been memory-unsafe on social media. It would be one thing to write some technical post and be done with it but this obsession with Zig by Rust dev was infuriating to put it mildly. The same dev was very anti-Go in past and would post endless comments on Go here and elsewhere.
TUSF 1y ago
> anti-Rust sentiment I have not seen much of any anti-Rust sentiment in the community. There's a lot of people in the community who do Rust, like rust, and work on rust projects. If the Zig community has an anti-anything sentiment, it's against C++.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  Tell that to the “VP of community @ zig software foundation” who spend a significant fraction of its time insulting Rust maintainers or mere users here or on Twitter when he's not busy writing anti-Rust rants on his blog. (You won't have to seek long in his HN history to find an instance of such behavior)

bnolsen 1y ago

The anti rust sentiment in large part is dissatisfaction with rust itself. Ziglang.org lists 3 principles of zig: no hidden control flow, no hidden memory allocations, no macros. This is not anti rust for the sake of being anti rust, this is anti lots of popular languages, and I personally like it.

littlestymaar 1y ago
That isn't “anti Rust” at all, it's just a different set of trade offs, and it's fine that it attracts developers who don't like the set of trade offs Rust make. What's not very good are the people who don't like Rust, who are uneasy with Rust is eating the system programming world, and are now pushing Zig as the champion of the resistance about Rust. It happens a lot, unfortunately.

pjmlp 1y ago

Not only, the whole handmade movement puts me off. It is the anti-intelectualism from Go culture, gone wild against C++, Rust, Swift, anything modern, or even tools, using game engines versus doing the whole computer from scratch for a game.

kristoff_it 1y ago
Zig is not really a handmade project, case in point both Andrew and I are blocked on social media by the two gods of the handmade movement (casey and john) and, according to their die hard fans, Andrew gave a talk at the last handmade conference that caused the community to split apart (the reality is a bit more complex than this, but Andrew's talk is certainly one that you wouldn't see at their new "better software" conference). Andrew's talk is here (second event after the two people chatting while sitting on chairs): https://handmadecities.com/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/ https://handmadecities.com/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/ Here you can see a particularly funny (but also sad) reaction by one of these people https://drive.proton.me/urls/MB1EB4EF34#YZdvmAvBFp1C https://drive.proton.me/urls/MB1EB4EF34#YZdvmAvBFp1C > using game engines versus doing the whole computer from scratch for a game That said you are doing yourself a disservice if you think that not using an engine to make a game is a form of "anti-intellectualism".
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Thanks for clarification. Depends on the attitude, not using an engine, because one wants to learn the whole stack, makes all sense, after all people need to learn how to make game engines, if nothing else for the next generation. Not using one out of spite, because we do everything handmade over here attitude, is a completely different matter.
- brodo 1y ago
  Here is another comment on the whole Handmade-Kerfuffle from one of the presenters: https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/2025.html https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/2025.html (the entry under 19b) It seems this was a right vs. left (or liberal) split.
  - deagle50 1y ago
    more like old school lib vs "new left"
- secondary_op 1y ago
  Unfortunately for everyone, people like you tie their entire identity and income to specific technologies, movements, or communities—becoming deeply tribal in the process. When something or someone undermines their sense of security—even with constructive criticism—they react defensively, often to the point of ignorance. All this, combined with the fact that Zig, at best is still in beta quality and at worst amounts to a massive waste of everyone’s time, makes it unsurprising that people block you and simply refuse to engage with your loud community efforts, endless churn and crust tied to beta quality compiler. > Zig is not really a handmade project, case in point both Andrew and I are blocked on social media by the two gods of the handmade movement (casey and john) and, according to their die hard fans, Andrew gave a talk at the last handmade conference that caused the community to split apart (the reality is a bit more complex than this, but Andrew's talk is certainly one that you wouldn't see at their new "better software" conference). > Andrew's talk is here (second event after the two people chatting while sitting on chairs): https://handmadecities.com/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/ https://handmadecities.com/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/ > Here you can see a particularly funny (but also sad) reaction by one of these people https://drive.proton.me/urls/MB1EB4EF34#YZdvmAvBFp1C https://drive.proton.me/urls/MB1EB4EF34#YZdvmAvBFp1C Regarding the links you posted: In the first, at 2:30:40, Andrew Kelly publicly calls out a specific author of a competing technology in exaggerated, caricatured, and fabricated context. In the second video, yet another author of a yet another competing technology directly points out this unapologetic and concerning behavior on Andrew Kelly’s part. And now you—“VP of Community @ Zig Software Foundation”—assert your “righteous” stance by sharing these videos, while ironically pointing out that some of those same individuals (of competing technologies fame) block you on social media. Too bad that doing your job probably means being as loud and visible online as possible to spread the molecules of Zig no matter what.
baranul 1y ago
If you didn't know, Casey has made comments on a YouTube video, that he does not like Zig. His review of Zig, was that it's a language that he rather not use and would not recommend.

kristoff_it 1y ago

> 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 kind of shaming says less about Zig than you'd think. When I first joined the Zig project, Zig was still using the bootstrap compiler written in C++ that would not free memory (it took more than 4GB to compile the Zig compiler). Some people at the time were asking us to prioritize work on the package manager but Andrew rightfully wanted to prioritize rewriting the compiler instead. In hindsight this was the obviously right decision: a package manager implies that one can very easily add an order of magnitude more code to their project, stressing the performance of the compiler. If we had not prioritized core infrastructure over giving people what they wanted faster, today we would have people complaining that adding a single dependency to their project makes the build impossible to complete. The Zig project has a huge scope and we are a small independent organization. This makes us extremely nimble and efficient, but it does mean that we need to do things in the order that makes the most sense for the project, not for what the public wants. The fact that we develop in the open doesn't mean that the language is ready yet. People that already have the required domain knowledge (and who have a tolerance for breaking changes) will have the opportunity to be early adopters if they wish to do so, others will have to wait for Zig to become more mature. And we do make this clear in releases and all forms of public communication. We have gone a long way since the bootstrap compiler days, but we are still missing key infrastructure: - we have a x86_64 custom backend but aarch64 is not complete yet - incremental compilation is showing that we can get instant rebuilds of large projects, but it has missing features and it doesn't work on all platforms yet - we need native fuzzing since AFL keeps regressing everytime a new version of LLVM comes out - for the longest time we haven't had a strong I/O story, now we're finally working on it The time for paving the road for a new generation of programmers will come (it's in the ZSF mission statement btw), but first we need to finish the plumbing.

adwn 1y ago
> […] Zig was still using the bootstrap compiler written in C++ that would not free memory […] That sounds strange. Modern C++ requires very little manual memory management, at least when you're writing something high-level like a compiler. C++11 had been out for years when development on Zig started. Were they writing C++ old-school as C-with-classes and malloc() everywhere? Why not use a more appropriate language for the first prototype of a compiler for a brand new language?

ksec 1y ago

That is actually a valid point on expectation given the attracted people's demographic. I will hopefully wait for comments from Ghostty, Bun or Tigerbeetle Devs. On another point that is wroth mentioning, I hope Andrew will at least put it out publicly, IMO Zig isn't Anti-Rust. But it did attract the type of people who are not too happy with Rust. I dont remember a single time Zig came out to bash anything about Rust. It isn't Anti anything at all. Its goal is to be a decent C replacement as very high level assembly languages, aiming at Data Oriented Design with some interesting features, and extremely fast compilation speed. ( Which was the reason why I was interested in it in the first place. I miss Turbo Pascal ) Zig reminds me of the old school, traditional projects. It isn't perfect for everything, it never claims to be, if you like it, use it. If not, there are plenty of options out there. At least Ghostty Dev seems to be enjoying it almost every day.

littlestymaar 1y ago
I don't think Andrew is anti-Rust. But Loris, whose hn profile says he's “vp of community of the zig software foundation” is as anti-Rust as you can get: he's pathologically obsessed by Rust and spent significant amount of energy outright insulting Rust maintainers here or on Twitter (when he's not buzzy writing anti-Rust rant on his blog). But as you say, there's no reason why Zig ought to be anti-Rust, both language are are fresh attempts at low level programming, both highly opinionated and with very different philosophies and trade offs and both language can cohabit peacefully (I've heard good things about using the Zig toolchain for cross compilation of C dependencies in rust projects, so the existence of Zig already has had a positive impact on the Rust ecosystem).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- geodel 1y ago
  Huh, it all started with a Rust developer ceaselessly picking on Zig been memory-unsafe on social media. It would be one thing to write some technical post and be done with it but this obsession with Zig by Rust dev was infuriating to put it mildly. The same dev was very anti-Go in past and would post endless comments on Go here and elsewhere.

TUSF 1y ago

> anti-Rust sentiment I have not seen much of any anti-Rust sentiment in the community. There's a lot of people in the community who do Rust, like rust, and work on rust projects. If the Zig community has an anti-anything sentiment, it's against C++.

littlestymaar 1y ago
Tell that to the “VP of community @ zig software foundation” who spend a significant fraction of its time insulting Rust maintainers or mere users here or on Twitter when he's not busy writing anti-Rust rants on his blog. (You won't have to seek long in his HN history to find an instance of such behavior)