Birbla

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Hacker News

Not sure a personal attack against Jarred really helps the case for using Zig. He could have and should have focused on the language and not “a stinky manager”. Honestly, this makes me want to steer clear of Andrew as much as Jarred.

by dnoberon

It's hard, in my opinion, to lend credence to the author here when they decided to devote the first and largest section of their article to an incisive display of speculative ad hominem.

Would have been a great opportunity to outline the benefits of Zig! I've been keen to pick Zig up recently due to mitchellh's evangelism and inspiring writing on the subject.

This article puts me off learning Zig.

by sarreph

I found this post very refreshing! I’m sure it would have been very tempting to one-up the “PR-speak” of the Bun post. Likewise, it would have been very tempting to include the same set of facts that reflect negatively on Jarred, while studiously concealing one’s own opinion (eg “I heard people called him a stinky manager. I am not saying that, other people are, but I’m not”). I appreciated that it was just … genuine.

by fwlr

> So, when the Anthropic aquisition finally happened, we at ZSF breathed a sigh of relief. When the donation silently stopped, our bank account was ready for it. When they neither canceled their monthly meeting with us, nor showed up, we were not surprised. The relationship was over.

Seen this time and time again, project/organization gets taken over, and everything "good" they did doesn't get exited with fanfare or anything, just silently dropped as your benefactor starts silently ignoring you.

I'm really happy they saw the writing on the all and were prepared for the inevitable, a really great lesson you shouldn't need to learn yourself the hard way, and FOSS project relying on one/two big donators should take heed, we'll see a lot more of this in the developer tooling ecosystem moving forward for sure.

by embedding-shape

There are astute comments about the post's tone elsewhere in this thread[0]

But this killed my hopes for Zig.

The drama is fun, and Andrew is maybe even admirable in his earnest, but this just isn't the kind of professionalism needed for a serious project. I know that's boring and uninspired, but that's what I want my tech stack and it's management to be.

Also, maybe Jarred was a net negative, but bun was also a really big project using Zig, and the project leaving isn't as good for Zig as Andrew is making it seem. It genuinely seems he's putting a lot of priority on purity and ideology over just growth of the language. And I am sorry, but adoption and reaching critical mass is an important part of a serious programming language.

[0] esp. nilirl.

by preommr

> Two, I actually don't have any personal criticisms of Jarred

That’s quite a statement to make at the end of a post that seems to contain little else…all just thinly veiled.

Saying someone has „beginner energy“ but reframing it as a faux positive (this person fails and thus learns)

Or saying the grapevine says someone is a „stinky manager“? Basically I’m not saying this person is bad it’s just that I need to bring up on this blog that everyone agrees this person is bad.

All seems to be in very poor taste even if true…

by Havoc

I have learned so much reading Andrew’s code and as I said in the original post: Bun would never have happened without Zig.

> The post claims they were fuzzing their Zig code, while during our calls the whole Bun team told us that they were not fuzzing anything. This appears to be an outright fabrication.

Fuzzilli integration: https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/24826

Merged PRs fixing issues Fuzzilli found in Bun’s Zig code:

- https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/28926

- https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/28934

- https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/29255

- https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/29210

- https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/29199

Searching “Fuzzilli” shows more PRs: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aoven-sh%2Fbun+is%3Apr+Fuz...

by Jarred

This is unprofessional and embarrassing for Zig.

I know very little about Jared but his article yesterday, which I read, seemed appreciative of Zig. I now learn he's donated significant chunks of money to them.

This entire article is publicly and personally attacking him for choosing a different product.

It's insane to me that Andrew thinks this post will somehow exonerate Zig when it really just makes them look childish. Or maybe he doesn't care, and just wants to attack Jarred?

by tuckwat

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  • Hacker News
  • Not sure a personal attack against Jarred really helps the case for using Zig. He could have and should have focused on the language and not “a stinky manager”. Honestly, this makes me want to steer clear of Andrew as much as Jarred.
    by dnoberon
  • It's hard, in my opinion, to lend credence to the author here when they decided to devote the first and largest section of their article to an incisive display of speculative ad hominem.

    Would have been a great opportunity to outline the benefits of Zig! I've been keen to pick Zig up recently due to mitchellh's evangelism and inspiring writing on the subject.

    This article puts me off learning Zig.

    by sarreph
  • I found this post very refreshing! I’m sure it would have been very tempting to one-up the “PR-speak” of the Bun post. Likewise, it would have been very tempting to include the same set of facts that reflect negatively on Jarred, while studiously concealing one’s own opinion (eg “I heard people called him a stinky manager. I am not saying that, other people are, but I’m not”). I appreciated that it was just … genuine.
    by fwlr
  • > So, when the Anthropic aquisition finally happened, we at ZSF breathed a sigh of relief. When the donation silently stopped, our bank account was ready for it. When they neither canceled their monthly meeting with us, nor showed up, we were not surprised. The relationship was over.

    Seen this time and time again, project/organization gets taken over, and everything "good" they did doesn't get exited with fanfare or anything, just silently dropped as your benefactor starts silently ignoring you.

    I'm really happy they saw the writing on the all and were prepared for the inevitable, a really great lesson you shouldn't need to learn yourself the hard way, and FOSS project relying on one/two big donators should take heed, we'll see a lot more of this in the developer tooling ecosystem moving forward for sure.

    by embedding-shape
  • There are astute comments about the post's tone elsewhere in this thread[0]

    But this killed my hopes for Zig.

    The drama is fun, and Andrew is maybe even admirable in his earnest, but this just isn't the kind of professionalism needed for a serious project. I know that's boring and uninspired, but that's what I want my tech stack and it's management to be.

    Also, maybe Jarred was a net negative, but bun was also a really big project using Zig, and the project leaving isn't as good for Zig as Andrew is making it seem. It genuinely seems he's putting a lot of priority on purity and ideology over just growth of the language. And I am sorry, but adoption and reaching critical mass is an important part of a serious programming language.

    [0] esp. nilirl.

    by preommr
  • > Two, I actually don't have any personal criticisms of Jarred

    That’s quite a statement to make at the end of a post that seems to contain little else…all just thinly veiled.

    Saying someone has „beginner energy“ but reframing it as a faux positive (this person fails and thus learns)

    Or saying the grapevine says someone is a „stinky manager“? Basically I’m not saying this person is bad it’s just that I need to bring up on this blog that everyone agrees this person is bad.

    All seems to be in very poor taste even if true…

    by Havoc
  • I have learned so much reading Andrew’s code and as I said in the original post: Bun would never have happened without Zig.

    > The post claims they were fuzzing their Zig code, while during our calls the whole Bun team told us that they were not fuzzing anything. This appears to be an outright fabrication.

    Fuzzilli integration: https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/24826

    Merged PRs fixing issues Fuzzilli found in Bun’s Zig code:

    - https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/28926

    - https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/28934

    - https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/29255

    - https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/29210

    - https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/29199

    Searching “Fuzzilli” shows more PRs: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aoven-sh%2Fbun+is%3Apr+Fuz...

    by Jarred
  • This is unprofessional and embarrassing for Zig.

    I know very little about Jared but his article yesterday, which I read, seemed appreciative of Zig. I now learn he's donated significant chunks of money to them.

    This entire article is publicly and personally attacking him for choosing a different product.

    It's insane to me that Andrew thinks this post will somehow exonerate Zig when it really just makes them look childish. Or maybe he doesn't care, and just wants to attack Jarred?

    by tuckwat