"The main problem, however, was code quality.
The Zig team regularly checks in on our users’ projects. We read source code to find out how the language is affecting users, we test changes to see how problematic breakage might be, and we check for performance regressions."
Nah, I deleted my crappy Zig codes from git after reading this. 
Writing that sounds cathartic. There were points where the tone sounded like it was veering too negative, but in true Andrew style, I think he kept it sufficiently grounded when it got rocky.
I think I can sympathise with having a “customer” who doesn’t take your advice.
There are valid points in the post. But I don’t appreciate the strong language used.
a stinky manager. Poor communication, unrealistic expectations, low empathy, no experience. Just a total shit show, from an employment perspective
already writing slop well before he had access to LLMs
their vague “sell some cloud something” business plan was a farce
Although this is on Andrew’s personal blog, but it’s undeniable that Andrew’s name associates with the Zig brand tightly. It genuinely put people off.
Why bother with assembly? Binaries only.
This is one thing that keeps me anchored in all the LLM discussion, and not getting carried away in the hype. If they’re capable they shouldn’t need computer languages, compilers, and all the other affectations we have built to make the job of programming suitable for us humans. For a computer, it’s all superfluous overhead.
Yet they work in the languages we work in because they have copied our homework.
Agreed, Andrew at least talks like a human and not a lying PR department. I would rather actually have a human write the words instead of the llm pr department that is bun and anthropic.
On the contrary it actually attracts me more to zig, everyone has just been so trained to roll over to the techno fascists that the moment a real human critique of an individual who treats other humans poorly they gaspe and clutch their AI ™ pearls.
I think that we need the ability to call out people who abuse others, and actively take advantage of them for their own monitary and personal gain. Jared sounded like he abused his employees, 80 hours a week are you kidding me. He actively took advantage of people, I have worst words to say than what Andrew did.
I really think that you are just so used to lying to your face speak that a real human thought maybe jarring.
You are using the corpo thought definition of ‘professionalism’, originally to be professional:
““Professionalism” used to mean something. A lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, or an accountant wasn’t just doing a job. They were members of a profession, bound by a code of ethics and a duty to something higher than their employer or even their client. Fidelity to that code gave them credibility beyond what skills alone could provide. Society expected that they would follow their professional ethics even at great personal cost”
Not rolling over and talking nicely about someone who was not nice to you, or others in the profession. If anything Andrew’s ethical code and his willingness to bring it forth is MORE professional than the corpo line up line down speak is.
Unnecessary references to Jarred being a Thiel Fellow “uncritically embracing the Silicon Valley mindset” to easily disprovable “fuzzing fabrication” takes away good vibes from otherwise solid article.
EDIT: typos
I really wonder how different things would be if we as a profession adhered to e.g. the ACM code of ethics. I knew it existed, but I haven’t read it until now, and it feels like a damning critique of everything I’ve gotten used to as both a user and creator of technology.
Now our profession is aiding and abetting the dismantling exactly these kinds of ethical codes in nursing and medicine.
I agree that these few sentences probably cross a bit of a line from fair critique to pot shots.
But, at the end of the day, fair enough! Sounds like they had quite a frustrating and difficult relationship. I applaud the use of Andrew’s platform to surface some concerns with both the quality of the product and the management, as well as the ideological differences.
I don’t think anyone actually gets hurt here. Jarred gets a bit of negative PR, maybe, that will probably be dismissed by the people around him and his rather large bucket of cash.
Zig as a language has a bit of an ideological stance on modern tech issues because Andrew is in charge - and it is that ideology that makes me support it more! But there may be a few folk who see public charged responses like this as a turn off, and maybe that’s the hurt, if any, that gets caused a bit by the tone of the post.
All I want to add is that I greatly appreciate the candid and informative article from Andrew Kelley. Addressing the matter on a technical and social level is important to ensure a fair representation of Zig and its community throughout this event.
I support Andrew for what he said, and the manner in which he said it. I don’t personally think anything in the article can be properly categorised as unfair or disingenuous.
Normally I wouldn’t bother to add to this sort of conversation, but I imagine it has been somewhat of an ordeal to go through, and wanted to voice some positive support for how it was handled.
To each their own but if you’re going to have a go at someone just go full Torvalds instead of this PR-tinted passive aggressiveness. It’s the worst of both worlds IMO.
Better yet - go full Terry Davis on their ass.
Never go full Terry A. Davis.
mlugg and I were doing monthly calls with the bun team and I remember very clearly asking them about fuzzing and receiving a negative reply (i.e. they were not doing fuzzing). Assuming this information was correct, then it is a fact that bun did not have any fuzzing until it got bought by Anthropic, which is when the monthly meeting stopped.
I like Zig’s stance against AI contributions on pure technical, team building (“contributor poker”) and project management grounds, no ideology. For low-level language design we need untainted CS expertise and human engineering taste to make solid and lasting choices and decisions. No AI designing/implementing the language itself. That said, I reserve the right (like mitchellh) to use coding agent while writing my own projects in Zig.
I do not get how people are interpreting this as too emotional or whatever. Personally I know I would have wrote much worse. If anything, this feels like a genuine, kindhearted wrap-up of this whole mess.
I don’t know if I’d characterize it as emotional but very clearly full of veiled jabs and backhanded compliments.
Day to day I feel the pressure rising from VC people, executives, and now from below from novices… to throw away our engineering discipline, systems engineering principles, and knowledge of that makes systems maintainable, reliable, simple.
It feels like I am fighting against a sea of “just use AI for that”, “just test in production”, “the ai knows more than me anyway”, “that work is too tedious”. Never is the question “how can I design this to be reliable”, “how can our engineering practices ensure better outcomes, even in the face of high rate of change”. Why are we not applying engineering to our engineering problems?
I design physical systems with real operators and somehow the expectation that “there is no unexpected behavior” is solely on me to enforce above and below me. I ask the question “how do you know this code works”, expecting to hear something about, you know, testing, and I get blank stares. It’s just not engineering if you can’t assess whether your stuff works or not, or will work a year from now.
I appreciate Andrew at least speaking his mind against these forces that I have to fight on a daily basis, because it’s just not acceptable to me to leave what is my personal responsibility to ensure the safety, behavior, and simplicity of my systems to LLMs.
It looks like people are having a hard time believing me when I say it’s not personal, and that I actually accept Jarred for who he is, and actually perceive him as successful by his own standards, and in fact genuinely happy for him. It’s the truth though. I accept people who are wildly different than me. I don’t hold it against people to have different tastes than me. And I don’t even hate my opponents in the world of business. If anything we have something in common, we’re both playing the same game, albeit on opposite teams. We both love the game though.