4 ms·

Blow made his own language because he's so eye-wateringly arrogant and thinks every language (that he didn't make) sucks, and only he is smart enough to design

Blow made his own language because he's so eye-wateringly arrogant and thinks every language (that he didn't make) sucks, and only he is smart enough to design a better language for programming games. Seriously, this is why he did it. His ego and arrogance is off the charts and if it wasn't made by him, he thinks it sucks (e.g. he doesn't like Linux, probably because he realizes Torvalds is actually smarter than him). He also doesn't like C++ or Rust, again, it's probably a good indicator he has a deep inferiority complex and so he has to prove he's the smartest person in the world by writing his own, "better" language. I.e. I don't think he's making a programming language for some "love of creating", I think he's doing it because he has a deep psychological issue/insecurity, which drives his need to always be the "smartest person in the room", his arrogance, the way he dismisses others who don't agree with his viewpoints etc.

hyperbolablabla 10mo ago
This is a very reductive take. Even if you don't like Jon, calling Jai an exercise in arrogance is simply untrue. When he started making Jai in ~2014, there were very few viable alternatives to C/C++ in the systems programming space that offered the kind of expressive power becoming of a langauge built this century. Rust is great, but it prioritising correctness is not always the right choice, especially not for games. Jai introduced many ideas that languages like Zig and Odin ended up adopting.
- dymk 10mo ago
  How has Jai introduce ideas if it’s not even released? How can we claim to know what it did “right” when only a few projects have been built in it?
  - forgotpwd16 10mo ago
    It may not have a public* release but, over the last decade (starting pre-Zig/Odin), Blow has discussed it extensively in his videos[0], enough that even ~10y was possible for someone to make a toy independent implementation[1]. [0]: https://inductive.no/jai/ https://inductive.no/jai/ [1]: https://github.com/Sharir/jai https://github.com/Sharir/jai *Although there has (always?) been a private alpha/beta release.
    - dymk 10mo ago
      Still then, it's a stretch to say that Jai influenced other languages. How could it when only a handful of game-centered applications have been built by a handfull of devs? Rust and Zig developed features by cutting their teeth on large amounts of real software, not by following one guy's personal project that has no source, no library, no spec available.
      - Jensson 10mo ago
        > Still then, it's a stretch to say that Jai influenced other languages. How could it when only a handful of game-centered applications have been built by a handfull of devs? Lots of people have seen his talks about the language, so why do you think its impossible it influenced other languages?
        dymk 10mo ago
        It's unlikely that the Rust and Zig devs are looking at one guy's gamedev focused vlog compared to feedback from tens of thousands of engineers writing tens of thousands of public projects in Rust and Zig. Have they heard of Jai? Yeah probably. But it's barely a drop in the bucket as far as the PL design community goes.
        sesm 10mo ago
        So, everybody with a toy Github repo gets a sit in a Rust/Zig design committee? Not sure about Rust, but Zig seems to explicitly follow Cathedral-style development model.
        dymk 10mo ago
        I'm confused, that's not what I said or implied?
        sesm 10mo ago
        > feedback from tens of thousands of engineers writing tens of thousands of public projects in Rust and Zig
  - bmn__ 10mo ago
    > How has Jai introduce ideas if it’s not even released? These are orthogonal concepts. Jai can or cannot introduce ideas, and Jai can or cannot be released. As of now, it is in fact so that Jai has introduced ideas, and has been released to a closed group of beta testers. > How can we claim to know what it did “right” when only a few projects have been built in it? To judge whether Jai did something right, in my opinion, it suffices to read the documentation and experience someone else programming second-hand and take advantage of its offerings, namely making programming less tedious, more enjoyable, more safe. It appears to me that you set the bar of usefulness or success too high for no good reason.
- Trasmatta 10mo ago
  I've watched enough hours of his streams to know that this is NOT a reductive take. Blow is one of the most arrogant developers and game designers, and believes that nearly everyone else is an idiot. He's somewhat Musk adjacent in his need to be viewed as smart (but I guess he does so least have way more programming chops than Musk, so I'll give him that).
Hammershaft 10mo ago
C++ & Linux are world-changing tools, but C++ & Linux really do suck in ways that become more offensive with taste. Rust makes very different tradeoffs than ones gamedevs want. Regardless, if arrogance drives people to make new tools then we should be grateful for that arrogance.
troupo 10mo ago
I think you're projecting a lot of your own complexes and insecurities. He built a language for a very specific task: building games. There were quite a few requirements for such a language. Opinionated? Yes. But that's how you get new languages: by having opinions. Along the way he changed the design and the assumptions several times (e.g. built-in SOA structures are gone) while keeping the original goal in mind and using it to build a custom engine and a game while building the language (thus validating the choices made). If/when Jai is released hopefully sometime next year, I do hope the documentation includes the rationale because he talked a lot about why other languages don't cut it in his opinion in the early days of development.
- saberience 10mo ago
  Eh, I can write that comment because it's fairly easy to see this side of JBlow if you've been following his work for a while. He is so naturally abrasive about other people's work, loves shitting on things he didn't make himself, loves being the smartest guy in the room, and also is a covid is a hoax, anti-vaxxer, Trump supporter etc. I don't think I'm the smartest guy in the room, and that's OK. I realised a long time ago that ego/arrogance isn't a great quality and it's far better to have a strong network of friends and supporters, and that doesn't happen if you're an arrogant prick. And yes, he built the language (which is totally un-needed) because the "idiots" who made all the existing languages, didn't make one as good as in JBlows brain. Despite the fact that there are 1000s of games which are far better than anything JB has made written in C#, C++, Java, Rust, etc. Did Larian need to write a new programming language to make Baldurs Gate 3? Only JB is arrogant to think that only a new language is good enough for him to make a game with. A game that is just a modern spin on Sokoban and where he paid a bunch of other game devs to use their puzzles! You could write this shit in three.js and it wouldnt look or feel any differently.
  - Trasmatta 10mo ago
    +1 to all of this. I can no longer deal seriously with Blow's ideas, programming language, or games because he can't present any idea without being highly condescending and critical of just about everyone else. I'm glad I've never had to work for or with him, because he's the type of coworker or boss that constantly makes everyone's lives miserable.
baranul 10mo ago
Think it's more along the lines of Jon having the ability to create a language, and upon being dissatisfied with what he was using, decided to make his own. GitHub is littered with pet languages that people have made, and doubt their reasons are simply about being "eye-wateringly arrogant". Moving past that, people paying attention or wanting to use the language, usually means it appeals to them. Jai has fans and supporters, because they are able to look past or are not concerned about his personality quirks, but are focused on the quality and usefulness of the software produced.

hyperbolablabla 10mo ago

This is a very reductive take. Even if you don't like Jon, calling Jai an exercise in arrogance is simply untrue. When he started making Jai in ~2014, there were very few viable alternatives to C/C++ in the systems programming space that offered the kind of expressive power becoming of a langauge built this century. Rust is great, but it prioritising correctness is not always the right choice, especially not for games. Jai introduced many ideas that languages like Zig and Odin ended up adopting.

dymk 10mo ago
How has Jai introduce ideas if it’s not even released? How can we claim to know what it did “right” when only a few projects have been built in it?
- forgotpwd16 10mo ago
  It may not have a public* release but, over the last decade (starting pre-Zig/Odin), Blow has discussed it extensively in his videos[0], enough that even ~10y was possible for someone to make a toy independent implementation[1]. [0]: https://inductive.no/jai/ https://inductive.no/jai/ [1]: https://github.com/Sharir/jai https://github.com/Sharir/jai *Although there has (always?) been a private alpha/beta release.
  - dymk 10mo ago
    Still then, it's a stretch to say that Jai influenced other languages. How could it when only a handful of game-centered applications have been built by a handfull of devs? Rust and Zig developed features by cutting their teeth on large amounts of real software, not by following one guy's personal project that has no source, no library, no spec available.
    - Jensson 10mo ago
      > Still then, it's a stretch to say that Jai influenced other languages. How could it when only a handful of game-centered applications have been built by a handfull of devs? Lots of people have seen his talks about the language, so why do you think its impossible it influenced other languages?
      - dymk 10mo ago
        It's unlikely that the Rust and Zig devs are looking at one guy's gamedev focused vlog compared to feedback from tens of thousands of engineers writing tens of thousands of public projects in Rust and Zig. Have they heard of Jai? Yeah probably. But it's barely a drop in the bucket as far as the PL design community goes.
        sesm 10mo ago
        So, everybody with a toy Github repo gets a sit in a Rust/Zig design committee? Not sure about Rust, but Zig seems to explicitly follow Cathedral-style development model.
        dymk 10mo ago
        I'm confused, that's not what I said or implied?
        sesm 10mo ago
        > feedback from tens of thousands of engineers writing tens of thousands of public projects in Rust and Zig
- bmn__ 10mo ago
  > How has Jai introduce ideas if it’s not even released? These are orthogonal concepts. Jai can or cannot introduce ideas, and Jai can or cannot be released. As of now, it is in fact so that Jai has introduced ideas, and has been released to a closed group of beta testers. > How can we claim to know what it did “right” when only a few projects have been built in it? To judge whether Jai did something right, in my opinion, it suffices to read the documentation and experience someone else programming second-hand and take advantage of its offerings, namely making programming less tedious, more enjoyable, more safe. It appears to me that you set the bar of usefulness or success too high for no good reason.
Trasmatta 10mo ago
I've watched enough hours of his streams to know that this is NOT a reductive take. Blow is one of the most arrogant developers and game designers, and believes that nearly everyone else is an idiot. He's somewhat Musk adjacent in his need to be viewed as smart (but I guess he does so least have way more programming chops than Musk, so I'll give him that).

Hammershaft 10mo ago

C++ & Linux are world-changing tools, but C++ & Linux really do suck in ways that become more offensive with taste. Rust makes very different tradeoffs than ones gamedevs want. Regardless, if arrogance drives people to make new tools then we should be grateful for that arrogance.

troupo 10mo ago

I think you're projecting a lot of your own complexes and insecurities. He built a language for a very specific task: building games. There were quite a few requirements for such a language. Opinionated? Yes. But that's how you get new languages: by having opinions. Along the way he changed the design and the assumptions several times (e.g. built-in SOA structures are gone) while keeping the original goal in mind and using it to build a custom engine and a game while building the language (thus validating the choices made). If/when Jai is released hopefully sometime next year, I do hope the documentation includes the rationale because he talked a lot about why other languages don't cut it in his opinion in the early days of development.

saberience 10mo ago
Eh, I can write that comment because it's fairly easy to see this side of JBlow if you've been following his work for a while. He is so naturally abrasive about other people's work, loves shitting on things he didn't make himself, loves being the smartest guy in the room, and also is a covid is a hoax, anti-vaxxer, Trump supporter etc. I don't think I'm the smartest guy in the room, and that's OK. I realised a long time ago that ego/arrogance isn't a great quality and it's far better to have a strong network of friends and supporters, and that doesn't happen if you're an arrogant prick. And yes, he built the language (which is totally un-needed) because the "idiots" who made all the existing languages, didn't make one as good as in JBlows brain. Despite the fact that there are 1000s of games which are far better than anything JB has made written in C#, C++, Java, Rust, etc. Did Larian need to write a new programming language to make Baldurs Gate 3? Only JB is arrogant to think that only a new language is good enough for him to make a game with. A game that is just a modern spin on Sokoban and where he paid a bunch of other game devs to use their puzzles! You could write this shit in three.js and it wouldnt look or feel any differently.
- Trasmatta 10mo ago
  +1 to all of this. I can no longer deal seriously with Blow's ideas, programming language, or games because he can't present any idea without being highly condescending and critical of just about everyone else. I'm glad I've never had to work for or with him, because he's the type of coworker or boss that constantly makes everyone's lives miserable.

baranul 10mo ago

Think it's more along the lines of Jon having the ability to create a language, and upon being dissatisfied with what he was using, decided to make his own. GitHub is littered with pet languages that people have made, and doubt their reasons are simply about being "eye-wateringly arrogant". Moving past that, people paying attention or wanting to use the language, usually means it appeals to them. Jai has fans and supporters, because they are able to look past or are not concerned about his personality quirks, but are focused on the quality and usefulness of the software produced.