[bitwize]

Zig is a DOA language for other reasons though. The reason why Rust enthusiasts act so morally superior is because they are:

> Rob Pike, an unsafe guy, may insist that a small language and garbage collection are enough. But the typesafe visionary Grzegorz Wielbodłąński understands the deeper truth: every invalid state permitted by a compiler is a tiny act of civilizational sabotage.

https://x.com/typememetics/status/2078572052680790237

There is no sense pretending anymore that languages with as many gotchas as C and Zig are "simple". Quite simply, they are not. The complexities lie in what's left unspoken, unaddressed, and of course undefined; failure to comprehend these completely can be catastrophic. Rust is so thoroughly and obviously the correct thing that using anything less correct should be taken as a sign of engineering incompetence.

[K0nserv]

> There is no sense pretending anymore that languages with as many gotchas as C and Zig are "simple". Quite simply, they are not. The complexities lie in what's left unspoken, unaddressed, and of course undefined; failure to comprehend these completely can be catastrophic.

This is where I’ve arrived too. After nearly 20 years of programming I feel done with leaving foot guns lying around. Languages that are full of them, but “fine” as long as you take extreme care are not interesting to me. I’ve started calling this “simple as long as you avoid all the foot guns” idea the sword juggling fallacy[0].

It’s too bad about Zig because it has many nice ideas, in particular allocators, that I hope Rust or some future language will adopt.

0: https://hugotunius.se/2026/06/15/the-sword-juggling-fallacy....

[dnautics]

yeah rust has no footguns. just dont try to mix clone with iter.

[K0nserv]

Of course Rust has a few footguns too, that's not my point.

[skydhash]

There are many things in life that are "fine" only when you take extreme care (knives, cars, industrial machinery,...). The thing is something like C has many usages and you can't just say "use Rust" and be done with it. Using Rust is not cost-free.

[K0nserv]

I'm not saying "never use C". The thing I dislike is the false dichotomy between "(Zig|C|Go) is simple unlike Rust, which is complex". A statement like that makes it sound like writing correct code in the former is easier when it's, in fact harder.

[dnautics]

the thing is, as a pattern, footguns in zig are simple and easy to reason about (though they might be hard for an ADHD human to find). the compositional nature of rust sometimes makes footguns "hard to see" because they can be hidden behind layers of abstraction.

there is a potential future where an llm with unbounded patience would have an easy time literally walking through the zig code looking for one of the footguns might miss a footgun in rust because it's abstracted away. the ones in the stdlib should give you pause. what is hiding in some third party library's code?

[pjmlp]

There is more to it even, the UNIX and C founders arrived to Go, before retirement, after a few other interactions.

AT&T was the one doing the Cyclone research.

And then we have a bunch of folks assuming they know better about C that its own authors?

[BigTTYGothGF]

> And then we have a bunch of folks assuming they know better about C that its own authors?

Barthes aside, C's changed a lot in the years since they left.

[pjmlp]

Yes they stopped caring after C89, Plan 9 C compiler was a mix of C89 with extensions.

Still they are the authors, and withdrawing from WG14, going their own direction with Alef, Limbo, and finally Go, kind of proves the point they considered C done for its original purpose.

[BigTTYGothGF]

> kind of proves the point

I don't think it proves anything other than the wanted to work on something else.

[pjmlp]

It is a bit of presumptuous for one to assume to know better about something than the original authors.

Something was designed in a certain way, accomplished its goal of writing portable UNIX, and then design by committee took over.

The authors, with their experience moved on, the committee and the audience doubled down on the flaws.

[Ygg2]

You didn't just quote The Institute of Typesafe Memetic Research as proof of anything...

It's a shitposting, hyperbolic bait account. As funny as calling Andrew Kelley Smelley, it's not meant to be taken as gospel.

[csb6]

The post you linked to seems to jump to conclusions, to say the least. For example:

> One probable outcome of an unsafe-language-dominant world is full Andrew communism, which is precisely what Andrew “Smelley” Kelley proposes: abolish ICE and replace the market economy with a globally distributed network of community-maintained allocators.

> Rather than a commercial product, software becomes a “public good,” ultimately provided by the Zig Software Foundation as manually managed digital infrastructure.

Calling him "smelley"? Really? Pulling in the political views of the founder of a language and claiming that they inform his language design as part of a grand conspiracy against Rust/capitalism? Where are they getting all of this? Free, open-source compilers and related tooling (both of which Rust and Zig have) are already public goods managed by global communities of mostly volunteers

> This future strikes me as a dystopian hellscape, but I have never met an unsafe-language advocate who could explain how this ecosystem is supposed to sustain itself without unpaid maintainers, ideological volunteers, subsidized infrastructure, and endless donations to compiler projects that still cannot protect users from basic memory errors.

How is Rust any different than Zig in this respect? Both are projects largely run by nonprofits relying on communities to promote, maintain, and improve them.

Frankly, that entire "Institute for Type Safe Memetic Research" seems like either an elaborate satire or an account run by genuinely insane people who think type and memory safety are paramount societal issues.

[pseudony]

> run by genuinely insane people who think type and memory safety are paramount societal issues

So. Rust evangelists ? :)

But yes, it is wild that people can honestly quote such drivel as evidence of the language and its philosophy being superior.

Each time I try to evaluate Rust, I do so on its own merits. Going online I am rapidly convinced that I don’t want to be in the same room as a large chunk of its userbase. Statements start to sound a bit like that one time I was dragged into a pentecostal meeting.

[Ygg2]

If you saw the "Institute for Typesafe Memetic Research" and thought, "This is the den of Rust evangelists!" I don't want to break your illusion, because it's much funnier this way. Especially since there are like two people that like Rust on Twitter, and I'm one of them.

BTW did you hear about this:

https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-say-they-are-perfectly...

OR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXEddCLW3SM

[rirze]

I don't know, Andrew "Smelley" Kelly has some big beginner energy..

[Ygg2]

> Calling him "smelley"?

Turnabout is fair play.

> Frankly, that entire "Institute for Type Safe Memetic Research" seems like either an elaborate satire or an account run by genuinely insane people who think type and memory safety are paramount societal issues.

You've been had. Your entire rant means the bait worked.

[miav]

Based.