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Very questionable decision. You're running what aims to be a major programming language - have it where people expect and live with your gripes about the platf

Very questionable decision. You're running what aims to be a major programming language - have it where people expect and live with your gripes about the platform. In retail you set up your store in the biggest mall with the most customers walking past - sure you can go set up in some back alley but don't expect customers to come to your store. This remains true even if the mall owns forget to mop the floor. This feels immature and does not give confidence in the project/language leadership.

zdw 11mo ago
None of this means that you have to be on a specific platform. GitHub as default/mandatory is a single point of failure for the entire tech industry. For an example of another language that avoids being entirely coupled into Github, Go has it's real code hosting and CI interaction on a Gerrit instance, with some sync back and forth to GitHub for a few items. The CI pain and operational blindness mentioned in the Zig post is entirely real.
- wewewedxfgdf 11mo ago
  Yeah but marketing matters for Zig because it's still struggling to get significant mindshare. Zig needs to behave more mainstream rather than less and technical gripes about the source hosting platform should not matter more than marketing.
  - mk89 11mo ago
    Well maybe we are seeing this the wrong way. Maybe that's exactly the mindshare they want. People who get angry when they see bad code, so much to call the developers lackeys and monkeys. And an organization whose code base doesn't have to be on a mainstream server to attract exactly those who agree with this choice.
  - skybrian 11mo ago
    Maybe, but isn't it too soon to be mainstream anyway? Until the language and standard libraries hit 1.0, it seems like Zig is for early adopters. Having too many of the wrong kind of users is just going to be frustrating for everyone.
  - lenkite 11mo ago
    Marketing and visibility retention will likely be better when people think - hey its the PL that is NOT on github.
contrarian1234 11mo ago
I think it's a broader cultural issue where everyone has to have strong opinions about everything and make a strong stand - instead of picking your battles Not that I necessarily disagree with their reasoning, but stick to having strong feelings about your core "mission"? It just feels a bit "unstable". Hard to imagine such stuff coming from Java or Python or whatever other major language
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
Arainach 11mo ago
Eh. Their messaging is immature here, but you don't need to be on the biggest thing - especially when you have a limited set of contributiors, not millions. It is deeply unfortunate that Git won instead of Mercurial and even more unfortunate that GitHub won. GitHub's code review/PR UI is an abomination. We had better tools 15 years ago and GitHub is still a regression. There are tons of reasons to move off it if you're willing to pay the cost of working with alternatives.
- animesh 11mo ago
  I wonder why they did not choose Sourcehut or were they on there at some point?
  - p2detar 11mo ago
    And I wonder why Codeberg and not a self-hosted Forgejo/Gitea instance? I also don’t like GitHub but this bandwagon to Codeberg doesn’t seem quite alright to me. There must be another way than jumping from one centralized git hosting service to another.
dvrj101 11mo ago
> This feels immature and does not give confidence in the project/language leadership. so making tough decisions is now immature this days lol. > mall owns forget to mop the floor quite a whitewashing i would say.
Klonoar 11mo ago
> You're running what aims to be a major programming language - have it where people expect and live with your gripes about the platform. The core types who will make use of, contribute to, and/or otherwise use the repo likely don't need it to be on GitHub. Having it "where people expect" is useful for drive-by contributions but Zig doesn't really need that. Furthermore, why should we as a larger community cede things to GitHub and Microsoft? It doesn't change unless larger parties move the needle.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
Quothling 11mo ago
Who are people? People in USA? Where I live it's frankly a positive if you're on a different base than github. SQLite seems to manage fine without github, so I'm not sure why you think Zig isn't going to be. That being said I don't necessarily disagree with your position on maturity, SQLite has an official github mirror after all. Even if you don't want to bother with that there are a lot of ways to write about it without calling people monkeys.
- bayesnet 11mo ago
  SQLite doesn’t really accept PRs[0], so I don’t think is comparable here. The SQLite model is great for their purposes but I doubt it’s suited to a community-based open contribution setup. [0]: https://sqlite.org/copyright.html#:~:text=Open%2DSource%2C%20not%20Open%2DContribution https://sqlite.org/copyright.html#:~:text=Open%2DSource%2C%2...
procaryote 11mo ago
The messaging is questionable, but strengthening an open source alternative to a microsoft near-monopoly seems pretty good. Perhaps people should stop expecting all source code to be on a microsoft platform?
flohofwoe 11mo ago
It's just a public git repository and issue tracker, not a frigging "store front". People don't "discover" Zig because its source repository being hosted on Github vs some other random URL (and creating a bug report or PR appears to work exactly like on GH anyways: https://codeberg.org/ziglang/zig https://codeberg.org/ziglang/zig).
poulpy123 11mo ago
It's a programming language, not a tool for end users. The intersection of people for who Zig being hosted on github is helpful with the people who are going to interact with the code source is basically none
- rererereferred 11mo ago
  It might even reduce the numbr of slop PRs they get.
arp242 11mo ago
For established projects of a certain level of audience and attention, they can be hosted anywhere and it won't matter all that much. Zig is already such a project. People already know about Zig. There's tons of established projects that don't use GitHub (some migrated, some never used it) and they're fine.
giancarlostoro 11mo ago
I agree. I usually nope out of projects not on GitHub until someone builds an alternative that seems solid. I am surprised none of the major Linux distros have built one yet. I could see it being better funded if a few major Linux distros decided to host their own. Ubuntu had theirs but it uses a custom source control system so its niche to Ubuntu itself.
lowbloodsugar 11mo ago
Ah yes, I always look for big box Warhammer 40k stores in malls.

zdw 11mo ago

None of this means that you have to be on a specific platform. GitHub as default/mandatory is a single point of failure for the entire tech industry. For an example of another language that avoids being entirely coupled into Github, Go has it's real code hosting and CI interaction on a Gerrit instance, with some sync back and forth to GitHub for a few items. The CI pain and operational blindness mentioned in the Zig post is entirely real.

wewewedxfgdf 11mo ago
Yeah but marketing matters for Zig because it's still struggling to get significant mindshare. Zig needs to behave more mainstream rather than less and technical gripes about the source hosting platform should not matter more than marketing.
- mk89 11mo ago
  Well maybe we are seeing this the wrong way. Maybe that's exactly the mindshare they want. People who get angry when they see bad code, so much to call the developers lackeys and monkeys. And an organization whose code base doesn't have to be on a mainstream server to attract exactly those who agree with this choice.
- skybrian 11mo ago
  Maybe, but isn't it too soon to be mainstream anyway? Until the language and standard libraries hit 1.0, it seems like Zig is for early adopters. Having too many of the wrong kind of users is just going to be frustrating for everyone.
- lenkite 11mo ago
  Marketing and visibility retention will likely be better when people think - hey its the PL that is NOT on github.

contrarian1234 11mo ago

I think it's a broader cultural issue where everyone has to have strong opinions about everything and make a strong stand - instead of picking your battles Not that I necessarily disagree with their reasoning, but stick to having strong feelings about your core "mission"? It just feels a bit "unstable". Hard to imagine such stuff coming from Java or Python or whatever other major language

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

Arainach 11mo ago

Eh. Their messaging is immature here, but you don't need to be on the biggest thing - especially when you have a limited set of contributiors, not millions. It is deeply unfortunate that Git won instead of Mercurial and even more unfortunate that GitHub won. GitHub's code review/PR UI is an abomination. We had better tools 15 years ago and GitHub is still a regression. There are tons of reasons to move off it if you're willing to pay the cost of working with alternatives.

animesh 11mo ago
I wonder why they did not choose Sourcehut or were they on there at some point?
- p2detar 11mo ago
  And I wonder why Codeberg and not a self-hosted Forgejo/Gitea instance? I also don’t like GitHub but this bandwagon to Codeberg doesn’t seem quite alright to me. There must be another way than jumping from one centralized git hosting service to another.

dvrj101 11mo ago

> This feels immature and does not give confidence in the project/language leadership. so making tough decisions is now immature this days lol. > mall owns forget to mop the floor quite a whitewashing i would say.

Klonoar 11mo ago

> You're running what aims to be a major programming language - have it where people expect and live with your gripes about the platform. The core types who will make use of, contribute to, and/or otherwise use the repo likely don't need it to be on GitHub. Having it "where people expect" is useful for drive-by contributions but Zig doesn't really need that. Furthermore, why should we as a larger community cede things to GitHub and Microsoft? It doesn't change unless larger parties move the needle.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

Quothling 11mo ago

Who are people? People in USA? Where I live it's frankly a positive if you're on a different base than github. SQLite seems to manage fine without github, so I'm not sure why you think Zig isn't going to be. That being said I don't necessarily disagree with your position on maturity, SQLite has an official github mirror after all. Even if you don't want to bother with that there are a lot of ways to write about it without calling people monkeys.

bayesnet 11mo ago
SQLite doesn’t really accept PRs[0], so I don’t think is comparable here. The SQLite model is great for their purposes but I doubt it’s suited to a community-based open contribution setup. [0]: https://sqlite.org/copyright.html#:~:text=Open%2DSource%2C%20not%20Open%2DContribution https://sqlite.org/copyright.html#:~:text=Open%2DSource%2C%2...

procaryote 11mo ago

The messaging is questionable, but strengthening an open source alternative to a microsoft near-monopoly seems pretty good. Perhaps people should stop expecting all source code to be on a microsoft platform?

flohofwoe 11mo ago

It's just a public git repository and issue tracker, not a frigging "store front". People don't "discover" Zig because its source repository being hosted on Github vs some other random URL (and creating a bug report or PR appears to work exactly like on GH anyways: https://codeberg.org/ziglang/zig https://codeberg.org/ziglang/zig).

poulpy123 11mo ago

It's a programming language, not a tool for end users. The intersection of people for who Zig being hosted on github is helpful with the people who are going to interact with the code source is basically none

rererereferred 11mo ago
It might even reduce the numbr of slop PRs they get.

arp242 11mo ago

For established projects of a certain level of audience and attention, they can be hosted anywhere and it won't matter all that much. Zig is already such a project. People already know about Zig. There's tons of established projects that don't use GitHub (some migrated, some never used it) and they're fine.

giancarlostoro 11mo ago

I agree. I usually nope out of projects not on GitHub until someone builds an alternative that seems solid. I am surprised none of the major Linux distros have built one yet. I could see it being better funded if a few major Linux distros decided to host their own. Ubuntu had theirs but it uses a custom source control system so its niche to Ubuntu itself.

lowbloodsugar 11mo ago

Ah yes, I always look for big box Warhammer 40k stores in malls.