# What was the first functioning program you built with zig and when did you start?

**URL:** <https://ziggit.dev/t/what-was-the-first-functioning-program-you-built-with-zig-and-when-did-you-start/16170>\
**Category:** Showcase\
**Tags:** community\
**Created:** [June 14, 2026, 8:31pm UTC](https://ziggit.dev/t/what-was-the-first-functioning-program-you-built-with-zig-and-when-did-you-start/16170 "2026-06-14T20:31:56Z")\
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**Author:** ![asibahi](https://ziggit.dev/user_avatar/ziggit.dev/asibahi/32/5416_2.png) [@asibahi](https://ziggit.dev/u/asibahi)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2026, 10:21pm UTC](https://ziggit.dev/t/what-was-the-first-functioning-program-you-built-with-zig-and-when-did-you-start/16170/29 "2026-06-17T22:21:32Z")

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To learn Zig, [I followed the Writing a Compiler book, by Nora Sandler](https://ar-ms.me/thoughts/c-compiler-1-zig/). Basically a small, working very incomplete C compiler .. so judging by the dates on those pages, May 2025?

The first piece of software I am actually using is [`3sl`](https://ziggit.dev/t/3sl-a-sweet-hex-viewer/14933). Which is a terminal based hexdump viewer.

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