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Contributors and maintainers will also be easier to find in Rust than Zig. Zig is a great language and I want to see it succeed, but this is a prudent move for

Contributors and maintainers will also be easier to find in Rust than Zig. Zig is a great language and I want to see it succeed, but this is a prudent move for Bun.

versecafe 5mo ago
This is likely irrelevant given bun has stopped taking community PR's entirely and Jarred is pitching that human contributors should be banned.
- etoxin 5mo ago
  There is like 1,713 open PR's on the Bun repo. I'm assuming all are from Claude or robobun?. I guess this gives us an insight on what the claude-code workflow look likes. Crazy times.
  - ModernMech 5mo ago
    https://lobste.rs/s/otxkjw/bun_js_runtime_is_being_vibe_ported_from#c_qfia71 https://lobste.rs/s/otxkjw/bun_js_runtime_is_being_vibe_port... > The regular pull requests for bun are wild too: https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pulls?q=is%3Apr+ https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pulls?q=is%3Apr+ > Most are created autonomously by @robobun, checked for duplicates with a GitHub action (powered by Claude), reviewed by @coderabbitai and @claude. Meanwhile the CI is broken and @robobun finally closes a portion of its own PRs because they duplicate other PRs it has written. (Merging into main is still done by a human.)
- jabedude 5mo ago
  Where is a source for either of these extraordinary claims?
  - csande17 5mo ago
    https://x.com/jarredsumner/status/2048434628248359284 https://x.com/jarredsumner/status/2048434628248359284
    - shadowfiend 5mo ago
      The gp's interpretation of that tweet is such a completely incorrect reading as to make one think it's likely disingenuous.
      - slopinthebag 5mo ago
        > I expect OSS to go the opposite direction: no human contribution allowed. How is it an incorrect interpretation? Jared is indeed pitching/suggesting/predicting that human contribution will not be allowed in the near future, i.e. banned.
        Philpax 5mo ago
        A prediction is not a policy.
        sandbags 5mo ago
        When you use the word “allowed” it becomes a policy.
        NewsaHackO 5mo ago
        No, it doesn't.
        sandbags 5mo ago
        What would be required for you to see it as a policy?
        kelnos 5mo ago
        "Pitching" generally means that the person making the pitch is endorsing and pushing for it. (This might also be a regional word meaning/usage difference type thing.) The person upthread should have said "predicting".
    - lioeters 5mo ago
unclad5968 5mo ago
I don't think Zig is different enough from rust or any other systems language for it to matter. If you can write rust you can write Zig.
- jaggederest 5mo ago
  Anthropic makes claude, claude can write Rust like a champ and struggles at Zig. It's a straightforward "training data" argument. I think there are even longer term plays that Anthropic should be looking at, in this space, but it seems like they've decided rust is the right thing, so fair play. I would be (am!) thinking about making an LLM optimized high level language that you can generate / train on intensively because you control the language spec.
  - dnautics 5mo ago
    claude does not struggle with zig? not in my hands anyways.
  - aabhay 5mo ago
    Claude doesn’t write Rust like a champ. It’s still miles ahead at js and python than it is at rust. It can do macros and single file optimizations but its gotten really stuck in type hell and tried to dyn everything on multiple occasions for me.
    - vlovich123 5mo ago
      Claude struggling at Rust: not getting types correct, using the wrong abstractions, not implementing things correctly Claude struggling at Zig: the above + memory safety issues if you run “fast” mode. It is generally true that Rust code tends to be written in a way that the compiler catches the issue at compile time. The same is not as true for Zig, Python or JS
    - fireant 5mo ago
      As a human occasionally writing Rust I've also frequently got stuck in type hell.
chrisweekly 5mo ago
100%. For many people, Bun is the only reason they've even heard of Zig. I'm not in a position to comment intelligently on comparative language features per se, but when it comes to mindshare and community size, Rust is a clear winner.
- majormajor 5mo ago
  fwiw before today I'd heard of Zig and not Bun :D something JS-adjacent could certainly be more known than an obscure language but are that many people using drop-in node replacements?
  - Dylan16807 5mo ago
    fwiw I knew about both but I had no idea Bun was written in Zig.
  - chrisweekly 5mo ago
    alt runtimes are still pretty niche, but deno and bun do have some degree of adoption. For Bun, the runtime is actually sometimes perceived as unwanted baggage, (eg a consulting client of mine wanted to pursue bun for its build tooling but had no interest in changing the runtime). IMHO, node (with Vite and PNPM) is the right call for the vast majority.
TheRoque 5mo ago
Why didn't they use Rust in the first place then ? All this was true before AI
- tux1968 5mo ago
  Anthropic only acquired Bun in December of last year. They weren't there in the first place, to make the decision.
- epolanski 5mo ago
  Zig has some advantages for such projects, especially in the beginning. Among them: - much easier to iterate on (due to the language being simpler and compilation much faster) - native C/C++ interops (Zig can compile C and C++ and mix it with Zig) which is crucial for a node-replacement runtime that runs an open source JS engine - fewer dependencies and trivial static linking I guess that now that they've been acquired by Anthropic there's this combination of having both in-house Rust talent, AI which does better on Rust, and the funding and resources necessary to undertake such a migration.
  - dolmen 5mo ago
    Also: Anthropic bought Bun to not depend on node.js. But now they are dependent on Zig which is a moving target and is hostile to them because not accepting their contributions.
    - 12_throw_away 5mo ago
      > But now they are dependent on Zig which [...] is hostile to them because not accepting their contributions I'm struggling to figure out how to even start interrogating this notion. What does this mean?
GuB-42 5mo ago
I wouldn't call any port "prudent". In general, taking mature software and doing any major rewrite is one of the riskiest thing you can do. It is a large scale attempt to fix what isn't broken. Sometimes it is worth it, but it may also kill projects. A risky move. And AI doesn't help its cause. AI can save a lot of time when making ports, it is one of the things it does best, but it doesn't protect from regressions. I am not using Bun in production, but if I was, I would consider it a risk. Not because of Rust vs Zig, but for changing things that work.

Contributors and maintainers will also be easier to find in Rust than Zig. Zig is a great language and I want to see it succeed, but this is a prudent move for Bun.

versecafe 5mo ago

This is likely irrelevant given bun has stopped taking community PR's entirely and Jarred is pitching that human contributors should be banned.

etoxin 5mo ago
There is like 1,713 open PR's on the Bun repo. I'm assuming all are from Claude or robobun?. I guess this gives us an insight on what the claude-code workflow look likes. Crazy times.
- ModernMech 5mo ago
  https://lobste.rs/s/otxkjw/bun_js_runtime_is_being_vibe_ported_from#c_qfia71 https://lobste.rs/s/otxkjw/bun_js_runtime_is_being_vibe_port... > The regular pull requests for bun are wild too: https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pulls?q=is%3Apr+ https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pulls?q=is%3Apr+ > Most are created autonomously by @robobun, checked for duplicates with a GitHub action (powered by Claude), reviewed by @coderabbitai and @claude. Meanwhile the CI is broken and @robobun finally closes a portion of its own PRs because they duplicate other PRs it has written. (Merging into main is still done by a human.)
jabedude 5mo ago
Where is a source for either of these extraordinary claims?
- csande17 5mo ago
  https://x.com/jarredsumner/status/2048434628248359284 https://x.com/jarredsumner/status/2048434628248359284
  - shadowfiend 5mo ago
    The gp's interpretation of that tweet is such a completely incorrect reading as to make one think it's likely disingenuous.
    - slopinthebag 5mo ago
      > I expect OSS to go the opposite direction: no human contribution allowed. How is it an incorrect interpretation? Jared is indeed pitching/suggesting/predicting that human contribution will not be allowed in the near future, i.e. banned.
      - Philpax 5mo ago
        A prediction is not a policy.
        sandbags 5mo ago
        When you use the word “allowed” it becomes a policy.
        NewsaHackO 5mo ago
        No, it doesn't.
        sandbags 5mo ago
        What would be required for you to see it as a policy?
      - kelnos 5mo ago
        "Pitching" generally means that the person making the pitch is endorsing and pushing for it. (This might also be a regional word meaning/usage difference type thing.) The person upthread should have said "predicting".
  - lioeters 5mo ago

unclad5968 5mo ago

I don't think Zig is different enough from rust or any other systems language for it to matter. If you can write rust you can write Zig.

jaggederest 5mo ago
Anthropic makes claude, claude can write Rust like a champ and struggles at Zig. It's a straightforward "training data" argument. I think there are even longer term plays that Anthropic should be looking at, in this space, but it seems like they've decided rust is the right thing, so fair play. I would be (am!) thinking about making an LLM optimized high level language that you can generate / train on intensively because you control the language spec.
- dnautics 5mo ago
  claude does not struggle with zig? not in my hands anyways.
- aabhay 5mo ago
  Claude doesn’t write Rust like a champ. It’s still miles ahead at js and python than it is at rust. It can do macros and single file optimizations but its gotten really stuck in type hell and tried to dyn everything on multiple occasions for me.
  - vlovich123 5mo ago
    Claude struggling at Rust: not getting types correct, using the wrong abstractions, not implementing things correctly Claude struggling at Zig: the above + memory safety issues if you run “fast” mode. It is generally true that Rust code tends to be written in a way that the compiler catches the issue at compile time. The same is not as true for Zig, Python or JS
  - fireant 5mo ago
    As a human occasionally writing Rust I've also frequently got stuck in type hell.

chrisweekly 5mo ago

100%. For many people, Bun is the only reason they've even heard of Zig. I'm not in a position to comment intelligently on comparative language features per se, but when it comes to mindshare and community size, Rust is a clear winner.

majormajor 5mo ago
fwiw before today I'd heard of Zig and not Bun :D something JS-adjacent could certainly be more known than an obscure language but are that many people using drop-in node replacements?
- Dylan16807 5mo ago
  fwiw I knew about both but I had no idea Bun was written in Zig.
- chrisweekly 5mo ago
  alt runtimes are still pretty niche, but deno and bun do have some degree of adoption. For Bun, the runtime is actually sometimes perceived as unwanted baggage, (eg a consulting client of mine wanted to pursue bun for its build tooling but had no interest in changing the runtime). IMHO, node (with Vite and PNPM) is the right call for the vast majority.

TheRoque 5mo ago

Why didn't they use Rust in the first place then ? All this was true before AI

tux1968 5mo ago
Anthropic only acquired Bun in December of last year. They weren't there in the first place, to make the decision.
epolanski 5mo ago
Zig has some advantages for such projects, especially in the beginning. Among them: - much easier to iterate on (due to the language being simpler and compilation much faster) - native C/C++ interops (Zig can compile C and C++ and mix it with Zig) which is crucial for a node-replacement runtime that runs an open source JS engine - fewer dependencies and trivial static linking I guess that now that they've been acquired by Anthropic there's this combination of having both in-house Rust talent, AI which does better on Rust, and the funding and resources necessary to undertake such a migration.
- dolmen 5mo ago
  Also: Anthropic bought Bun to not depend on node.js. But now they are dependent on Zig which is a moving target and is hostile to them because not accepting their contributions.
  - 12_throw_away 5mo ago
    > But now they are dependent on Zig which [...] is hostile to them because not accepting their contributions I'm struggling to figure out how to even start interrogating this notion. What does this mean?

GuB-42 5mo ago

I wouldn't call any port "prudent". In general, taking mature software and doing any major rewrite is one of the riskiest thing you can do. It is a large scale attempt to fix what isn't broken. Sometimes it is worth it, but it may also kill projects. A risky move. And AI doesn't help its cause. AI can save a lot of time when making ports, it is one of the things it does best, but it doesn't protect from regressions. I am not using Bun in production, but if I was, I would consider it a risk. Not because of Rust vs Zig, but for changing things that work.