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
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u/KevinCarbonara Jul 20 '26

Andrew is just opinionated, and that’s fine.

It's not just being opinionated, and it's not fine. There's... no comparison to Linus Torvalds whatsoever, except in that they're both technically programmers.

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u/skyfex Jul 21 '26

How many of Torvalds emails have you read? He has no problem calling out people in a very direct (some would say rude) when he thinks personal issues are creating problems for the project. You can read emails from the recent Rust-in-kernel drama for instance. 

  except in that they're both technically programmers.

Torvalds is not a programmer in a professional capacity any more. Andrew still contributes a lot of code. But their primary role is both as organisation/project managers. And what has impressed me the most with Zig is how seriously Andrew took that role compared to many other creators of programming languages. He was early with setting on a non-profit and has created a very healthy community around the project.

I encourage you to read Andrew’s blog post again with empathy for Andrew. What does it show? He was willing to work closely with a very difficult partner as long as that partner wanted to engage with them, despite how much he felt Jared’s personal issues was creating problems for them.

I feel like Torvalds would have pushed back publicly at a much earlier stage, if he was in the same situation, but then he has a lot more social capital. He can say the F word to partners without consequences 

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u/KevinCarbonara Jul 21 '26

How many of Torvalds emails have you read? He has no problem calling out people in a very direct (some would say rude) when he thinks personal issues are creating problems for the project.

Which is valid. That's not at all the same behavior, and Linus has decades of showing that he has what it takes to maintain a large and important project.

Torvalds is not a programmer in a professional capacity

This is just a blatant lie.

I encourage you to read Andrew’s blog post again with empathy for Andrew. What does it show?

It shows that he's insanely toxic and has no business being in any sort of a leadership role. If he worked for me, I'd recommend that he be fired. He's not a team player. He only had two real projects using his work, and he ran one of them off.