this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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70
Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke (raymyers.org)
submitted 1 day ago by codeinabox@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 58 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The whole "AI is enough" marketing that the author mentions in the conclusion is total poison. A buddy of mine works at one of the companies involved in this circlejerk and they have the same mandate. Cost is not an issue. Use it for everything.

He said he has to roll the dice all day to get good output from the AI. Its more important they USE THE AI than it is that they PRODUCE GOOD CODE. In fact "good code" is not a thing, in the traditional sense. "Good code" means AI created. His actual title ostensibly has nothing to do with AI, they are producing a totally different thing. But since he works at a company that is benefiting massively from AI investment, his bosses are mandating a worse form of developing because they are now in the business of selling AI rather than what presumably is the product.

It's like if you were a plumber and your plumbing company merged with a huge factory that makes 90 degree pipe elbows. So they mandated that all plumbing now had to be done by joining together nothing but 90 degree pipe elbows rather than any other fitting. And since its all going to be sealed up inside a wall, who cares? How dare you question this? Are you saying there AREN'T legitimate uses for 90 degree pipe elbows?

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

for anyone like me who could not understand that stupid title

"Call a spade a spade" is a figurative expression. It refers to calling something "as it is"[1]—that is, by its right or proper name, without "beating about the bush", but rather speaking truthfully, frankly, and directly about a topic;

"Blow smoke" - to speak idly, misleadingly, or boastfully

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Bun’s founder experimented with a massive agentic rewrite from Zig to unsafe Rust.
That experiment was merged days later and is now the official version.

Wait, they ai yolo from a memory safe language to an unsafe version of a different memory save language?

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Zig is not as strict as Rust for memory management

[–] tracyspcy@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Unsafe rust too

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

yes, but when you make a port from one language to another, usually you want to rewrite it as a translation first, then refactor later with the features that language provides. A port that refactors everything in the first release is too risky.

The fact the translation has unsafe blocks only demonstrates the Zig version is not really safe as per Rust standards.

[–] tracyspcy@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

my comment was just pointing out to unsafe rust blocks used in sloppy rewrite.

[–] BB_C@programming.dev -2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You clearly don't even know what unsafe in rust means. And it's not something you can avoid when FFI is involved, slopping involved or otherwise.

[–] vanillama@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

I see what you're saying, but there's no need to be rude.

[–] tracyspcy@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Claude is it you?

[–] BB_C@programming.dev -4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can interface with a C++ JS engine without unsafe (which is equivalent to just using C btw), if you just really put a real effort into it.

😇

I do love me some internet gantry commentary. Especially when it's super confident and acting knowledgable, with multiple layers of genius on display.

[–] tracyspcy@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago

where is quote from? You pretend this is a quote of something I wrote?

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev -4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure, but only 5% of the Rust code is unsafe, which is clearly an improvement. And their plan is to reduce that amount over time.

I'm no fan of AI slop but that point isn't an issue.

[–] SinTan1729@programming.dev 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It depends on where exactly that 5% lies. If it's in the core API that's used by the rest of the architecture, it essentially makes the whole codebase unsafe when used irresponsibly.

I don't know if that's the case here, just pointing out that the 5% doesn't mean much.

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev -2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Not exactly. It means that any of the code could lead to memory unsafety, but it's still better than Zig or C because you still only have to read 5% of the code to debug/fix those issues, instead of 100%.

5% is clearly better than 100%. Whatever else you think about this port you can't argue against that. In fact I can prove that it's better.

  1. Does Rust's memory safety design improve memory safety? Yes, this is proven by experience (e.g. see Google's blog posts).

  2. Does "normal" (not slop) Rust code rely on some unsafe? Yes. All Rust code must use some unsafe because it's used in the standard library, and even if you ignore that (there is an effort led by Amazon to formally verify it), it's usual for Rust projects to use at least some unsafe. Let's say 0.1% of lines.

  3. So 0.1% unsafe is clearly better than 100%. Is it possible for 0.1% unsafe to be better than 100%, but somehow 5% isn't? That would require things to be non-monotonic which is completely implausible.

[–] SinTan1729@programming.dev 8 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 50 minutes ago)

I'm sorry, but since we're being pedantic, this is not a proof. It's full of assumptions, some of which are wrong.

5% is clearly better than 100%

Never denied it. 0% is even better. What matters is where it's used. If it's used for FFI, that's understandable. Any other use should be scrutinized more. And that's the issue. The claim of Zig's creator is that the devs of Bun are not reliable. And to me at least, his arguments make sense.

it’s usual for Rust projects to use at least some unsafe

Doesn't seem like it. This article claims that only about 20% of Rust crates use unsafe at all. Even among those, the vast majority use it for FFI, which is kinda unavoidable.

but somehow 5% isn’t

Again, no one claimed that. But we need more than "better than 100%" when it's a JS runtime. And the "better"ness isn't necessarily linear. So, even though it might be technically "better", it might not be by much. At that point, what even is the point of the rewrite?

Again, I'm not claiming that it's actually badly written. I'm only claiming that your arguments are not adequate, and that Bun is not a reliable company, so take whatever they claim with a grain of salt.

[–] tracyspcy@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

So it is a reaction to Andrew Kelley’s reaction to bun / anthropic blog post that in their case was reaction to dev community reaction to sloppy rewrite from zig to rust with ai?