| ▲ | onlyrealcuzzo 3 days ago |
| > It's insane to me that Andrew thinks this post will somehow exonerate Zig when it really just makes them look childish. Antirez made a post equivalent to: you'd be a fool not to use AI to increase test coverage. Zig on the other hand has embarrassingly low test coverage given its adoption and time in development. Their stance on AI is completely childish. They could benefit massively from it, yet refuse to even consider any potential usage. It's one thing to try to stop PR spam. It's another thing to tie your hands behind your back and not even use it internally for the lowest hanging fruit where it could have major benefits. They could use AI to triage potential real bugs from PR spam... but instead they just let real bugs go unnoticed for longer than need be because they won't even use AI to help triage... |
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| ▲ | zeratax 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| in what way is it chidlish to have a principled position like this? you may disagree, i def use llms. but andrew has clear reasons for why he doesnt. |
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| ▲ | neutronicus 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Childish or no, anti-AI sentiment is ubiquitous and growing. From a PR perspective there’s a lot to gain in the short term by picking the “anti-AI” lane. And you can always change your mind later. |
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| ▲ | orangedog 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Surveys show that 60% of US adults don't like it which means 40% either don't care or do. I'd advise not getting your ideas about sentiment towards it from places like HN which are very biased and unrepresentative places of anything. I find the anti crowd increasingly to be hateful and close-minded and it is disappointing because I have a lot of friends in it. There's a moral puritanism which gives people feelings that they are on the "right" side and thus any level of rudeness or hatred is justified and it only hurts their side. | | |
| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | neutronicus 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don’t disagree with your characterization. But from a purely Machiavellian perspective I don’t see a lot of downside in courting this group in the short term. | |
| ▲ | voidhorse 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm not anti-AI at all but to call people who don't want to use it "moral puritans" is laughable. It's hard to read that as anything other than a self-report on your own extreme nonchalance when it comes to the many ethical thickets surrounding this technology. While the possible benefits of AI in fields like medicine are promising, the concerns that a lot of people have about LLMs and the supporting infrastructure, power shifts, and more that have come along with them are diverse, serious, and completely understandable, and I can't imagine them being "puritan" to anyone other than those ruthlessly driven by nothing but capitalistic self-interest. | | |
| ▲ | newaccountman2 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I just don't see how it's different from the pre-LLM landscape, personally. The takes I have seen about the "ethical thickets" all call out things that could have concerned the authors before LLMs, but which apparently did not. |
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| ▲ | abc42 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Or perhaps it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations and the people with anti-AI sentiment are called "laggards". If so, their amount will likely be near zero soon. This has happened thousands of times in human history. | | |
| ▲ | neutronicus 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Sure. That’s why I said “short-term” and “change your mind later”. The thing about laggards is their money spends the same as everyone else’s. |
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| ▲ | duxup 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Is popular sentiment a good measure for a decision? Anti lots of things have been growing at some points in history, including bad things. | | |
| ▲ | neutronicus a day ago | parent [-] | | My point is that it’s a non-decision. You can use AI later, when the models are better. In the short term, you can address the anti-AI market. |
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| ▲ | CrimsonRain 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's ubiquitous among dinosaurs. Don't worry. They will be left behind. | | |
| ▲ | neutronicus 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | speedster217 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | CrimsonRain 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Real engineers do real engineering with all tools at their disposal. Don't cry about one specific tool because it hurts their childish feelings...but you keep crying. It is ok to be a dino. | |
| ▲ | semiquaver 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Real engineers don’t eschew powerful engineering tools because of what their political tribe says about them. | | |
| ▲ | slopinthebag 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Real engineers aren't vibe coding. Please don't mistake Bun, Claude Code, web development et al, etc, as "engineering". | | |
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| ▲ | mchaver 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I am fine with people having principles and doing things their way. Not everything has to be a race to be the best. There are still plenty of people that appreciate traditional crafts. Anyway, if Zig+AI can be the next, greatest thing, can't someone just fork it and make it happen? |
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| ▲ | laurels-marts 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | No one cares enough of zig to do it, people will just continue moving to Rust and similar. | | |
| ▲ | kzrdude 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Well exactly, "Zig + someone using AI" can never beat Zig + someone who cares. A developer that cares about the project comes first, no amount of AI can change that. AI could be a good tool for a developer though. |
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| ▲ | cognitiveinline 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | People are doing the simpler thing: moving ecosystems more suppotive of their goal. |
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| ▲ | AyanamiKaine 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > Zig on the other hand has embarrassingly low test coverage And? Why would low test coverage matter. It’s not an indication of project quality nor does a high coverage mean an absence of bugs or errors. |
