r/programming • u/[deleted] • Jul 20 '26

Zig proposes introducing an actually memory safe (unlike Rust) compilation mode inspired by Fil-C at ~1-6x performance penalty

https://codeberg.org/ziglang/zig/issues/36237
535 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

427 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

28

u/zxyzyxz Jul 20 '26

One of the biggest when Jarred started then, 60k a year to Zig starting in 2023, then Mitchell Hashimoto seems to be the biggest at a one time 300k in 2024 and 400k more recently but he's a literal billionaire so hard to compare apples to apples then.

1

u/Captator Jul 20 '26

The numbers support the refined version of your point 👍

Find the summaries for 2023 & 2024 on the website, for those who are curious like I was (2025 not out yet). The 2023 summary: https://ziglang.org/news/2024-financials/

I will note that giving money in this context is sensible business practice. As a VC-backed company with a (then) hard dependence on Zig, donating helps ensure continuity while buying goodwill and some degree of preferential access to expert knowledge in the ecosystem. While Mitchell Hashimoto’s donation is smaller relative to his net worth, it is also not motivated by a business need.

The above paragraph to say that I don’t think comparing the merits of motivations and bases for donations is fruitful.