I can’t argue against that. API hell is real. No one wants to waste time learning all of that niche stuff, it’s just rote memorization.
ZSF isn’t formally against LLM generated Zig code. But they definitely don’t love LLMs the way Hashimoto does. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them compliment AI the way you have. Hashimoto’s not a great example of ZSF being “for” people generating Zig via LLMs, cuz he’s giving em the big bucks so there’s a conflict of interest. He’s even said himself that his opinions don’t fully align with the ZSF but he respects them regardless.
But I can come up with countless examples of them being against LLMs. Take this quote for example: “We’re all trying to get better at programming,” Kelley said. “People who are sending AI pull requests, those people are not helping this goal.”
He also said “I think looking at LLM generated output rots one’s brains and I want to avoid my brain rotting. If it’s hard to avoid brain rot on Ziggit then I will avoid Ziggit altogether.” There’s also this one. Now Andrew isn’t the ZSF, but given that he’s the president of the board of ZSF, we can expect that if they disagreed with him over such an important topic as AI use, they would be more explicit about it, but they don’t really say anything about AI at all on this page.
They want more Zig adoption, and it’s MIT licensed anyway, which means letting people use agents with Zig even if ZSF dislikes AI. We can think of LLMs as the philosopher’s stone from full metal alchemist. It’s powerful, made from evil means, sometimes you have to use it against your will, i.e. to escape Gluttony’s stomach (your boss is forcing you).
In this regard, LLMs are quite terrible, and would have likely never suggested something like the Io interface.
That’s definitely true for now. They’re still not there yet, but I don’t think that this will hold in say 2030.
And I will likely still spend a decent amount of time looking at how the LLM did it, because I think there is a thing or two to learn from it.
Can I hear your reasoning for why you chose Zig as opposed to any other language though? I’m trying to write a blog post on this topic and want opinions from all sides.