u/Cool_Technician_6380in r/Zig • Recommends
JetBrains interviews Andrew Kelley about Zig link to this video
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#zig#andrewkelley#zigsoftwarefoundation
Zig 2026: No-AI Policy, $670K Foundation, Left GitHub & Why Zig Isn’t 1.0 - Andrew Kelley Explains
JetBrains
236K subscribers • 30 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 7 people: 5 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters and 1 in engineering communities.
- Presented by Andrew Kelley, creator of Zig
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.
980K views5 months ago7 recommendations
Programming languagesTools and practiceZigLanguage design and type systemsOpen source
Andrew Kelley explains why Zig has no 1.0 release yet, why the project left GitHub, and why they banned AI contributions.
Andrew Kelley quit his job in 2018 to build a programming language. Eight years later, Zig powers Ghostty, TigerBeetle and Uber's cross-compilation. It's top 5 most admired on Stack Overflow. There's just one thing missing: 1.0. Andrew Kelley explains why. Vitaly talked to Andrew about: ◼️ Why Zig has no 1.0 after a decade, and why that's deliberate ◼️ Why Zig left GitHub ◼️ Why Zig banned AI from Zig ◼️ What makes Zig better than C (and why every other C replacement failed) ◼️ Andrew’s take on Open Source Intro Why Create Zig? Andrew Kelley Explains How Rust, Go and C All Failed What Is Zig Used For? Who Uses Zig in Production? Bun, Anthropic and Zig for AI How Uber Uses Zig With Go Why Is It Called "Zig"? Why Zig Isn't 1.0 After 10 Years “Worse is better” $670K Zig Foundation Can Sponsors Influence Zig Development? Andrew Kelley's $154K Salary $100 Million Challange Where Zig Foundation Money Goes Why Zig Left Reddit and Twitter Why Zig Left GitHub Why Codeberg? Why Zig Moved Away From LLVM 50ms Compile Time for a Million Lines No LLM / No AI Policy How Zig Detects AI-Generated Content Zig's AI Paradox Andrew Kelley on Vibe Coding Will Humans Still Write Code? Top 3 Open Source Projects of All Time The Firefox Problem Why Zig better then C? "Zig Embraces C More Than C Itself" Will Zig replace C? Zig vs Rust Zig’s Killer Feature Unused Variables I/O Interface How to learn Zig Moving From C to Zig Should You Learn Zig as Your First Language? Andrew Kelley's Dev Setup JetBrains IDEs Why AI Tools Are Worse Than a Rename What is BDFL Why One Dictator Beats a Committee What Happens If Andrew Kelley Leaves? "Zig Is a Shrine to Computers" Hardest Part of Building Zig Burnout Advice for Developers Joy Outside of Programming What Does Success Look Like for Zig? "I'm Basically Unemployable!” Visit Zig’s Website: ziglang.org/ Follow Andrew Kelley on Mastodon: mastodon.social/@andrewrk Follow Vitaly Bragilevsky (host) on X: x.com/VBragilevsky Oxana Mazurchak (showrunner) on X: x.com/OxanaMazurchak #Zig #ZigLang #AndrewKelley #programming #systemsprogramming #rust #clanguage #github #opensourceWhy it's here
7 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as an insightful interview with the creator of Zig that explains the language's cohesive vision, toolchain advantages, and development philosophy.
Moments people linked to
nilsherzigon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Pledging Another $400k to the Zig Software Foundation”
If you're unsure about spending the time to learn Zig, I really recommend watching the following interview with the creator of Zig link to this video convinced me more than any design doc or blogpost could
norman784on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Zig Zen Update”
I recommend you to watch Andrew Kelly interview0, while I'm not the target audience of Zig, I don't see him driving away any user. Also Jai as for now is a non existing language, just a selected few has access to it, but Jai approach is a kitchen sink, from what I saw it is all over the place in terms of features, now Zig vision feels cohesive. 0 link to this video
Erenay09on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Zig by Example”
I’d prefer that you watch this video interview with Andrew Kelley. He is describing that. link to this video Personal thoughts: I think Zig will become more stable once 1.0 tag released. Currently I cant find a fix to my error in net. But the folks on Zig Discord server helping me out.
aurahamon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Zig – SPIR-V Backend Progress”
I have the same feeling about Zig. In this interview 1, Andrew Kelley, creator of Zig, explains a lot of the features of the language; compares it against c, rust, go; and explains why he created the language. According to him, the killer feature of zig is the tool chain (compiler, linker, build system) since it has no dependencies. So, it will work in any OS/target you choose. It is a really interesting interview. However, Zig code is a bit hard for me to read. 1 link to this video
randusernameon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke”
TFA has an odd perspective. > Views are my own. I have no history with Zig. I’ve never spoken to Andrew Kelley There are better primary sources to explain what ZSF is trying to achieve with its AI stance. Kelley's rant 0 was a bit much but the ZSF AI Policy 1 and Kelley's interview on it 2 are interesting and informative. 0: link 1: link 2: link to this video
u/kaddkakain r/Zig • Mentions
On “I was kind of put off by Zig because of what I perceived to be a pretty extreme anti-ai policy but I watched the Jetbrains interview with Andrew Kelley and found I basically agreed with him about everything”
This one? link to this video
u/ibrahimmohammed0in r/Zig • Mentions
On “Just had my first PR accepted into Zig's std library 🎉”
link to this video
u/WeeklyGood9434in r/Zig • Mentions
On “My Thoughts on the Bun Rust Rewrite | Andrew Kelly”
For so lang I refused the sentence one is toxic as maniac.
As Engineer; I respect both but I think Andrew Kelley needs to improve how he communicates to the community.
I have not seen Jarred Sumner insult others Engineers wildly(share one if you have).
Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL) worked well for Python but not working well for Zig, right ?
For me may be I will try Zig after 1.0 (say 7 year from now).
I will keep using Rust, Go and TypeScript for now.
https://andrewkelley.me/post/my-thoughts-bun-rust-rewrite.html
https://bun.sh/blog/bun-in-rust#reduced-memory-usage
[video
latexron Hacker News • Mentions
On “Zig: Build System Reworked”
> It doesnt let you have unused variables Andrew Kelly on that: link to this video Looks like you might be able to get rid of the error easily with annotations.
pornelon Hacker News • Mentions
On “My Thoughts on the Bun Rust Rewrite”
I've watched an interview with Andrew Kelley: link to this video where he seemed much more chill and level-headed.
u/n0ne-z1roin r/Zig • Mentions
On “I was kind of put off by Zig because of what I perceived to be a pretty extreme anti-ai policy but I watched the Jetbrains interview with Andrew Kelley and found I basically agreed with him about everything”
YT-Interview