5 ms·

About LLMs at Zig Days

82 points by kristoff_it 5mo ago

robbiewxyz 5mo ago
Approaching significant change with humanity asks us to have empathy for many emotions at once. With respect to LLMs & other generative models those include but aren't limited to: * Excitement from people who are able to make things they could not, * Fear from people who's livelihoods are threatened, * Betrayal from artists whose work is being ripped off, * Alarm from activists looking out for ecosystems & the climate. To add to an already-difficult challenge: many people, corporations, & governments are pushing extreme greed, hubris, & dehumanization for various reasons. This piece does an excellent job laying out its recommendations with sensitivity for people of different perspectives & positions. I very much appreciate that.
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- Joel_Mckay 5mo ago
  Let me fix your logical fallacy of composition: " * Excitement from people who are able to [unaccountably plagerize] things they could not, * Fear from people who's [business IP rights] are threatened, * [overt copyright theft from] artists [and chat bot users] whose work is being ripped off, * [well funded denigration of] activists looking out for ecosystems & the climate. " Thankfully LLM are not real "AI", and modern hapless 'slavery with extra steps' plans will eventually end badly. Popcorn and bubble infrastructure liquidation fund standing by... =3
  - adamtaylor_13 5mo ago
    Why do people insist on using extreme rhetoric like this? If you don't personally like using LLMs, that's fine. The only point this comment serves is to stir the pot. Using your first example, if it was true and universally accepted that this was plaigerism--we wouldn't use it, now would we? But that's not the universal opinion so instead you're just twisting someone else's comment to stir the pot. Again, if you don't personally like LLMs and you personally feel like it's plagiarism cool, don't use them. Or at least make an argument for it. But as it stands, this comment is just low-effort trolling.
    - es15x 5mo ago
      Joel_Mckay is responding to a glib comment that sugarcoats and trivializes the theft. Just like you do. People need to be reminded of reality in their newspeak bubble.
      - adamtaylor_13 5mo ago
        Re-stating an opinion does not somehow establish it as a fact. I'd welcome an effort to support what you're saying instead of just hand-waving this as some sort of self-evident fact of the universe.
        fgqwt 5mo ago
        Why would people feed a sealion?
        Joel_Mckay 5mo ago
        Most of OpenAI CEO rhetoric doesn't hold up to even cursory reason. "People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model - but it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes about 20 years of life - and all the food you consume during that time - before you become smart." (Sam Altman) Let us take a worst case upper favorable estimate of his flippant statement: Adult Human peak power W: 600 Average U.S. home yearly kWh: 10500 20 Years = 7300 Days = 175200 Hours Human_metabolic_kWh = 105120 Home_shelter_kWh = 210000 Total_20Y_Human_Life_kWh = 315120 US average electricity cost is @17.65¢/kWh, and according to sources the LLM models took “1.2 million kWh for older foundational models to upwards of 11 billion kWh for next-generation frontiers". So if true that means: 1200000 kWh = $211,800 USD 11000000000 kWh = $1,941,500,000 USD In other metrics that means we know: 1200000 kWh trained LLM = 4 Human lives reallocated 11000000000 kWh trained LLM = 34907 Human lives reallocated Sam claiming 34907 Human lives is a small price to pay for a 85% accurate nonsense machine is ridiculous hyperbolic nonsense, and or the data they are publishing is inaccurate. People have a right to be displeased with the industry dismissing peoples concerns. =3
    - Joel_Mckay 5mo ago
      > Why do people insist on using extreme rhetoric like this? I simply narrowed the logical specificity of why LLM may be avoided in some use cases. No one can 100% prevent theft, as some people will decide personal desperation excuses philosophical compromises. It differs from a sociopath anti-social behavior, which is a constant aspect of civilizations. People can choose to be upset, or recognize it is a facet of some in "AI" gilded blitzscaling. LLM are good at context search, and have other tangible use-cases that does not require constantly stealing from other people. Have a wonderful day, =3
  - robbiewxyz 5mo ago
    This rephrasing is directly unhelpful to the goal of empathy for the humans caught in the change. If we come off as insensitive we will have no hope of influencing people. Also if you see a specific fallacy, please do name which one so I can improve. All that said, I personally unequivocally agree with each of your points. I hope you are channeling this rage not only into comments sections but also into the hard work of tearing down & replacing the many incumbent systems that plagerize, denigrate, steal, oppress, monopolize, waste, & enslave. I certainly am.
    - Joel_Mckay 5mo ago
      "This rephrasing is directly unhelpful" is an Informal fallacy. One does not need to "unequivocally agree", as facts should be verifiable. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ
      - robbiewxyz 5mo ago
        Sorry to ask again but which informal fallacy does it seem to you that I am using in my first statement? There are several [0]. In the interest of understanding, maybe I can make my passive phrasing a bit more active: when I say "this rephrasing is directly unhelpful [to] empathy", I could also say "if I tended to use the phrasing you did I am confident I would find myself with a reputation for being unempathetic i.e. rude". If you disagree with the statement it'd be great to hear your argument, but again disagreement does not imply fallacy. Your second statement strikes me as using two specific fallacies while also being severely out of touch. First, a moralistic fallacy [1] where you assert what facts "should" be while making a statement about what is or is not needed. Second, a false equivalence fallacy [2] where you imply without explanation that verifiability & not-needing-agreement are equivalent. I'm open to argument, but it seems to me that the two describe independently varying spaces: facts describing the space of reality with agreement describing alignment in the space of conviction. Finally, your overall statement is very strange to hear in the big 2026 when so many important & verifiable facts are so widely & disastrously disagreed upon. See the ongoing USA vaccine safety scare & measles outbreak as an example [3]. Finally, pointing to general & easily-accessible resources in response to a specific question is normally understood to be condescending & a form of insult. I'm not sure if you meant it that way but graciously declining to answer is almost always a better alternative. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy, see paragraph 2. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_fallacy#Moralistic_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_fallacy#Moralistic_..., the last example specifically names should-is equivalency. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles_resurgence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles_resurgence_in_the_Unit... I hope to hear from you but either way this will be my last reply here.
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GaggiX 5mo ago
The giant Umarell in the background is a nice piece of furniture. Edit: I noticed later it was in Milan, I guess it makes perfect sense.
jdlshore 5mo ago
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.)
- ratstew 5mo ago
  Isn't "soft ban" still a bit harsh? I think it was reasonable take and a good reminder of the purpose of these events.
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  - tolerance 5mo ago
    > 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.
    - kristoff_it 5mo ago
      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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48314145
      - tolerance 5mo ago
        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.
  - altairprime 5mo ago
    Only in the sense that community leadership is harsh by nature. ‘We’d rather you didn’t do that’ is the essence of a soft ban and what they’ve expressed as leader here, and even a soft ban muffling topics and therefore a subset of people, which is often seen as ‘harsh’.
sigmar 5mo ago
>My recommendation is also to not choose an extreme approach (e.g. by completely banning LLM-related discourse) unless you feel very strongly about it. Organizers are allowed to ban the mention of certain programming topics? I could understand if it was a topic that was adjacent to violence/harassment/sensitive stuff, but come on... are anti-AI groups becoming a cult?
- nvme0n1p1 5mo ago
  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.
  - skeledrew 5mo ago
    Given your example, how exactly would tomatoes be relevant to Python?
    - abalashov 5mo ago
      That's the point. They aren't.
      - skeledrew 5mo ago
        A broken point, as LLMs on the other hand are very relevant to coding, which is done via programming languages. And it's use in other - particularly knowledge dependent - areas is rapidly exploding.
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    - altairprime 5mo ago
      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-monitor 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
feverzsj 5mo ago
Just ban LLM. It's events for human beings, not LLMs.
- axod 5mo ago
  That's like saying ban IDEs. Or ban search engines. LLM is just a tool that humans use to create things.
- johnplatte 5mo ago
  I like the idea of "it's not about LLMs" better as a starting point. For example, someone could peel off from a shared coding session, ask an LLM to try a concept, then bring that LLM chat to the group to explore (and then yes close that window and go back to face-to-face). Make more efficient use of the face-to-face time. You could be right but I can think of numerous frustrating code jams in my past when we burned a lot of precious face-to-face time on fussy setup or other fiddly stuff.
  - bsder 5mo ago
    > You could be right but I can think of numerous frustrating code jams in my past when we burned a lot of precious face-to-face time on fussy setup or other fiddly stuff. Agreed, LLMs are particularly good at this kind of task. For example: my windowing system on Linux would intermittently freeze. Diagnosing it was a pain--so I bounced the logs off the LLM. It gave me a couple of hypotheses and the commands to enable the correct logs for when it happened again. After the third time it happened, it pinpointed that a particular USB hub was causing the issue. I removed the devices downstream from that hub and haven't had an issue since.
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- kristoff_it 5mo ago
  That doesn't mean anything in the context of a Zig Day. People will come to the event full of new experiences to talk about that relate to LLMs and also with some worries about the future of their profession, wich also will relate to LLMs a lot. Not only these are generally reasonable things for a human to want to talk about, but what is happening in the tech industry is definitely on topic for an event like Zig Days. The problem is when this consumes nearly 100% of the communication bandwidth detracting from the main goals of the event (applying systems thinking & making software you can love).
sgt 5mo ago
This is so sad. "Maybe - just maybe" > [...] the best career move is to become proficient at buying more tokens orchestrating agents, but I would still recommend not putting all your eggs in one basket just yet because maybe – just maybe – there will still be some value in knowing how systems work, both to differentiate yourself from other developers career-wise, and as part of effective LLM steering.
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- cma256 5mo ago
  This should be read sarcastically. Its an idiom in the US. You state something you view as obviously true while qualifying it with "maybe - just maybe". Its commonly said in a comedic tone.
  - sgt 5mo ago
    When it's spoken .. sure.. but as I read it, I wasn't so sure anymore.
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myth_drannon 5mo ago
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.
- sharperguy 5mo ago
  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?
  - slopinthebag 5mo ago
    Maybe just don't talk about stuff you commissioned (not created), it's entirely uninteresting to everybody else.
  - embedding-shape 5mo ago
    > It's hard to avoid the topic when it literally redefines what it means to create software. Say that the IDE also "redefined what it meant to create software" when it entered the ecosystem as an idea and product, does that mean every conversation, community meetup and thinking needs to consider the IDEs now? Probably not, then there is no more room for the other topics anymore.
    - altairprime 5mo ago
      Classically, this is when a large-sized BOF conference might form an “editors” committee, delegate the entire topic to it, and ask the committee to elect one presentation each day that the committee feels would be valued by the conference as a whole. It maintains the enthusiasm for those who truly value discussing that subtopic in detail, and it’s an effective tool for keeping evangelism and/or holy wars within a given group sect from sucking all the air out of the room for everyone else. (Modernily, subreddits are an expression of that exact same model, and remarkably effective at scale for that purpose.)
skeledrew 5mo ago
Be interesting to see where Zig and ecosystem is in a few years with this general anti-LLM stance from it's core people. My guess is it'll just make it's way as a hobby language, left behind in the dust. Which is of course a perfectly fine thing for some.
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- frakt0x90 5mo ago
  Naw, limiting LLMs for an event that's specifically about learning, growing, and collaborating makes a lot of sense. If it ends up dying it won't be because of their stance on LLMs for a conference.
- nektro 5mo ago
  > I would still recommend not putting all your eggs in one basket just yet because [..] there will still be some value in knowing how systems work, both to differentiate yourself from other developers career-wise, and as part of effective LLM steering. the thesis is that investing in your skills outside of LLMs pays dividends whether you decide to apply those skills to LLMs or not, plus spending time bonding with your fellow engineers is good for you too. so I'm sure Zig will be doing great in a few years
  - skeledrew 5mo ago
    >> there will still be some value in knowing how systems work, both to differentiate yourself from other developers career-wise, and as part of effective LLM steering. That seems like a strawman to as I can't think of anyone making a reasonable argument against. After all we still have C and even Assembly developers out there, despite the many languages-that're-more-convenient that've sprouted since.
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yomismoaqui 5mo ago
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Gerharddc 5mo ago
This seems like a very positive move to me. It makes it clear what Zig days are about so people know what to expect. There are 1000s of other events for people who want to build with LLMs so it's nice to have some recourse for those who still want to code by hand

82 points by kristoff_it 5mo ago

Approaching significant change with humanity asks us to have empathy for many emotions at once. With respect to LLMs & other generative models those include but aren't limited to: * Excitement from people who are able to make things they could not, * Fear from people who's livelihoods are threatened, * Betrayal from artists whose work is being ripped off, * Alarm from activists looking out for ecosystems & the climate. To add to an already-difficult challenge: many people, corporations, & governments are pushing extreme greed, hubris, & dehumanization for various reasons. This piece does an excellent job laying out its recommendations with sensitivity for people of different perspectives & positions. I very much appreciate that.

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Joel_Mckay 5mo ago
Let me fix your logical fallacy of composition: " * Excitement from people who are able to [unaccountably plagerize] things they could not, * Fear from people who's [business IP rights] are threatened, * [overt copyright theft from] artists [and chat bot users] whose work is being ripped off, * [well funded denigration of] activists looking out for ecosystems & the climate. " Thankfully LLM are not real "AI", and modern hapless 'slavery with extra steps' plans will eventually end badly. Popcorn and bubble infrastructure liquidation fund standing by... =3
- adamtaylor_13 5mo ago
  Why do people insist on using extreme rhetoric like this? If you don't personally like using LLMs, that's fine. The only point this comment serves is to stir the pot. Using your first example, if it was true and universally accepted that this was plaigerism--we wouldn't use it, now would we? But that's not the universal opinion so instead you're just twisting someone else's comment to stir the pot. Again, if you don't personally like LLMs and you personally feel like it's plagiarism cool, don't use them. Or at least make an argument for it. But as it stands, this comment is just low-effort trolling.
  - es15x 5mo ago
    Joel_Mckay is responding to a glib comment that sugarcoats and trivializes the theft. Just like you do. People need to be reminded of reality in their newspeak bubble.
    - adamtaylor_13 5mo ago
      Re-stating an opinion does not somehow establish it as a fact. I'd welcome an effort to support what you're saying instead of just hand-waving this as some sort of self-evident fact of the universe.
      - fgqwt 5mo ago
        Why would people feed a sealion?
      - Joel_Mckay 5mo ago
        Most of OpenAI CEO rhetoric doesn't hold up to even cursory reason. "People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model - but it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes about 20 years of life - and all the food you consume during that time - before you become smart." (Sam Altman) Let us take a worst case upper favorable estimate of his flippant statement: Adult Human peak power W: 600 Average U.S. home yearly kWh: 10500 20 Years = 7300 Days = 175200 Hours Human_metabolic_kWh = 105120 Home_shelter_kWh = 210000 Total_20Y_Human_Life_kWh = 315120 US average electricity cost is @17.65¢/kWh, and according to sources the LLM models took “1.2 million kWh for older foundational models to upwards of 11 billion kWh for next-generation frontiers". So if true that means: 1200000 kWh = $211,800 USD 11000000000 kWh = $1,941,500,000 USD In other metrics that means we know: 1200000 kWh trained LLM = 4 Human lives reallocated 11000000000 kWh trained LLM = 34907 Human lives reallocated Sam claiming 34907 Human lives is a small price to pay for a 85% accurate nonsense machine is ridiculous hyperbolic nonsense, and or the data they are publishing is inaccurate. People have a right to be displeased with the industry dismissing peoples concerns. =3
  - Joel_Mckay 5mo ago
    > Why do people insist on using extreme rhetoric like this? I simply narrowed the logical specificity of why LLM may be avoided in some use cases. No one can 100% prevent theft, as some people will decide personal desperation excuses philosophical compromises. It differs from a sociopath anti-social behavior, which is a constant aspect of civilizations. People can choose to be upset, or recognize it is a facet of some in "AI" gilded blitzscaling. LLM are good at context search, and have other tangible use-cases that does not require constantly stealing from other people. Have a wonderful day, =3
- robbiewxyz 5mo ago
  This rephrasing is directly unhelpful to the goal of empathy for the humans caught in the change. If we come off as insensitive we will have no hope of influencing people. Also if you see a specific fallacy, please do name which one so I can improve. All that said, I personally unequivocally agree with each of your points. I hope you are channeling this rage not only into comments sections but also into the hard work of tearing down & replacing the many incumbent systems that plagerize, denigrate, steal, oppress, monopolize, waste, & enslave. I certainly am.
  - Joel_Mckay 5mo ago
    "This rephrasing is directly unhelpful" is an Informal fallacy. One does not need to "unequivocally agree", as facts should be verifiable. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ
    - robbiewxyz 5mo ago
      Sorry to ask again but which informal fallacy does it seem to you that I am using in my first statement? There are several [0]. In the interest of understanding, maybe I can make my passive phrasing a bit more active: when I say "this rephrasing is directly unhelpful [to] empathy", I could also say "if I tended to use the phrasing you did I am confident I would find myself with a reputation for being unempathetic i.e. rude". If you disagree with the statement it'd be great to hear your argument, but again disagreement does not imply fallacy. Your second statement strikes me as using two specific fallacies while also being severely out of touch. First, a moralistic fallacy [1] where you assert what facts "should" be while making a statement about what is or is not needed. Second, a false equivalence fallacy [2] where you imply without explanation that verifiability & not-needing-agreement are equivalent. I'm open to argument, but it seems to me that the two describe independently varying spaces: facts describing the space of reality with agreement describing alignment in the space of conviction. Finally, your overall statement is very strange to hear in the big 2026 when so many important & verifiable facts are so widely & disastrously disagreed upon. See the ongoing USA vaccine safety scare & measles outbreak as an example [3]. Finally, pointing to general & easily-accessible resources in response to a specific question is normally understood to be condescending & a form of insult. I'm not sure if you meant it that way but graciously declining to answer is almost always a better alternative. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy, see paragraph 2. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_fallacy#Moralistic_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_fallacy#Moralistic_..., the last example specifically names should-is equivalency. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles_resurgence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles_resurgence_in_the_Unit... I hope to hear from you but either way this will be my last reply here.
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GaggiX 5mo ago

The giant Umarell in the background is a nice piece of furniture. Edit: I noticed later it was in Milan, I guess it makes perfect sense.

jdlshore 5mo ago

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.)

ratstew 5mo ago
Isn't "soft ban" still a bit harsh? I think it was reasonable take and a good reminder of the purpose of these events.
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- tolerance 5mo ago
  > 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.
  - kristoff_it 5mo ago
    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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48314145
    - tolerance 5mo ago
      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.
- altairprime 5mo ago
  Only in the sense that community leadership is harsh by nature. ‘We’d rather you didn’t do that’ is the essence of a soft ban and what they’ve expressed as leader here, and even a soft ban muffling topics and therefore a subset of people, which is often seen as ‘harsh’.

sigmar 5mo ago

>My recommendation is also to not choose an extreme approach (e.g. by completely banning LLM-related discourse) unless you feel very strongly about it. Organizers are allowed to ban the mention of certain programming topics? I could understand if it was a topic that was adjacent to violence/harassment/sensitive stuff, but come on... are anti-AI groups becoming a cult?

nvme0n1p1 5mo ago
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.
- skeledrew 5mo ago
  Given your example, how exactly would tomatoes be relevant to Python?
  - abalashov 5mo ago
    That's the point. They aren't.
    - skeledrew 5mo ago
      A broken point, as LLMs on the other hand are very relevant to coding, which is done via programming languages. And it's use in other - particularly knowledge dependent - areas is rapidly exploding.
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  - altairprime 5mo ago
    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-monitor 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

feverzsj 5mo ago

Just ban LLM. It's events for human beings, not LLMs.

axod 5mo ago
That's like saying ban IDEs. Or ban search engines. LLM is just a tool that humans use to create things.
johnplatte 5mo ago
I like the idea of "it's not about LLMs" better as a starting point. For example, someone could peel off from a shared coding session, ask an LLM to try a concept, then bring that LLM chat to the group to explore (and then yes close that window and go back to face-to-face). Make more efficient use of the face-to-face time. You could be right but I can think of numerous frustrating code jams in my past when we burned a lot of precious face-to-face time on fussy setup or other fiddly stuff.
- bsder 5mo ago
  > You could be right but I can think of numerous frustrating code jams in my past when we burned a lot of precious face-to-face time on fussy setup or other fiddly stuff. Agreed, LLMs are particularly good at this kind of task. For example: my windowing system on Linux would intermittently freeze. Diagnosing it was a pain--so I bounced the logs off the LLM. It gave me a couple of hypotheses and the commands to enable the correct logs for when it happened again. After the third time it happened, it pinpointed that a particular USB hub was causing the issue. I removed the devices downstream from that hub and haven't had an issue since.
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kristoff_it 5mo ago
That doesn't mean anything in the context of a Zig Day. People will come to the event full of new experiences to talk about that relate to LLMs and also with some worries about the future of their profession, wich also will relate to LLMs a lot. Not only these are generally reasonable things for a human to want to talk about, but what is happening in the tech industry is definitely on topic for an event like Zig Days. The problem is when this consumes nearly 100% of the communication bandwidth detracting from the main goals of the event (applying systems thinking & making software you can love).

sgt 5mo ago

This is so sad. "Maybe - just maybe" > [...] the best career move is to become proficient at buying more tokens orchestrating agents, but I would still recommend not putting all your eggs in one basket just yet because maybe – just maybe – there will still be some value in knowing how systems work, both to differentiate yourself from other developers career-wise, and as part of effective LLM steering.

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cma256 5mo ago
This should be read sarcastically. Its an idiom in the US. You state something you view as obviously true while qualifying it with "maybe - just maybe". Its commonly said in a comedic tone.
- sgt 5mo ago
  When it's spoken .. sure.. but as I read it, I wasn't so sure anymore.

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myth_drannon 5mo ago

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.

sharperguy 5mo ago
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?
- slopinthebag 5mo ago
  Maybe just don't talk about stuff you commissioned (not created), it's entirely uninteresting to everybody else.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  > It's hard to avoid the topic when it literally redefines what it means to create software. Say that the IDE also "redefined what it meant to create software" when it entered the ecosystem as an idea and product, does that mean every conversation, community meetup and thinking needs to consider the IDEs now? Probably not, then there is no more room for the other topics anymore.
  - altairprime 5mo ago
    Classically, this is when a large-sized BOF conference might form an “editors” committee, delegate the entire topic to it, and ask the committee to elect one presentation each day that the committee feels would be valued by the conference as a whole. It maintains the enthusiasm for those who truly value discussing that subtopic in detail, and it’s an effective tool for keeping evangelism and/or holy wars within a given group sect from sucking all the air out of the room for everyone else. (Modernily, subreddits are an expression of that exact same model, and remarkably effective at scale for that purpose.)

skeledrew 5mo ago

Be interesting to see where Zig and ecosystem is in a few years with this general anti-LLM stance from it's core people. My guess is it'll just make it's way as a hobby language, left behind in the dust. Which is of course a perfectly fine thing for some.

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frakt0x90 5mo ago
Naw, limiting LLMs for an event that's specifically about learning, growing, and collaborating makes a lot of sense. If it ends up dying it won't be because of their stance on LLMs for a conference.
nektro 5mo ago
> I would still recommend not putting all your eggs in one basket just yet because [..] there will still be some value in knowing how systems work, both to differentiate yourself from other developers career-wise, and as part of effective LLM steering. the thesis is that investing in your skills outside of LLMs pays dividends whether you decide to apply those skills to LLMs or not, plus spending time bonding with your fellow engineers is good for you too. so I'm sure Zig will be doing great in a few years
- skeledrew 5mo ago
  >> there will still be some value in knowing how systems work, both to differentiate yourself from other developers career-wise, and as part of effective LLM steering. That seems like a strawman to as I can't think of anyone making a reasonable argument against. After all we still have C and even Assembly developers out there, despite the many languages-that're-more-convenient that've sprouted since.
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yomismoaqui 5mo ago

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Gerharddc 5mo ago

This seems like a very positive move to me. It makes it clear what Zig days are about so people know what to expect. There are 1000s of other events for people who want to build with LLMs so it's nice to have some recourse for those who still want to code by hand