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0x696C6961 commented on I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface   openmymind.net/Im-Too-Dum... · Posted by u/begoon
dns_snek · 6 hours ago
> Documentation exists

Where does a beginner go to learn how to use the package manager these days? It looks like they still won't find any clues in the "Learn" section of Zig's website.

There's a promising page titled "Zig Build System" in there which references a "Package Management" section, but when you click on it, it doesn't exist!

0x696C6961 · 4 hours ago
So in your mind, one missing section means "no documentation"? This isn't the checkmate you think it is, you're just moving goalposts.

But to answer your question, it exists in the comments of the auto-generated build.zig.zon file

0x696C6961 commented on I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface   openmymind.net/Im-Too-Dum... · Posted by u/begoon
dns_snek · 9 hours ago
"No documentation" and "Core devs 'wasting' time on writing high quality documentation" aren't the only two options, that's what a false dichotomy means.

Other options include but are not limited to providing minimal, low effort examples, high-level overview, linking to projects using these features, linking to relevant tests, commits, or source code, setting up an official community wiki and encouraging people to contribute.

0x696C6961 · 9 hours ago
"No documentation" was never presented as an option. Documentation exists. By treating "insufficient docs" as "no docs", you're the one making the false equivalency.

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0x696C6961 commented on I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface   openmymind.net/Im-Too-Dum... · Posted by u/begoon
DannyBee · 10 hours ago
Only in a world where features are made without thought. Documentation is not just for your users. Writing the development documentation helps you make better features in the first place.

The zig users on this thread seem to not understand this, and all seem to think documentation is a thing you write later for users when everything settles down. Or is somehow otherwise "in the way" of feature and API development speed.

That is a very strange view.

If writing developer documentation is having serious affect on your language feature velocity, you are doing something very wrong. Instead, writing it should make things move faster, becuase, at a minimum, others understand what you are trying to do, how it is going to work, and can help. Also, it helps you think through it yourself and whether what you are writing makes any sense, etc.

Yes there are people who can do this all without documentation, but there are 100x as many who can't, but will still give high quality contributions that will move you along faster if you enable them to help you. Throwing out the ability to have these folks help you is, at a minimum, self-defeating.

I learned this the hard way, because i'm one of those folks who can just stare at random undocumented messy code and know what it actually does, what the author was probably trying to do, etc, and it took years till i learned most people were not like this.

0x696C6961 · 10 hours ago
You're conflating specs/RFCs with end-user documentation.
0x696C6961 commented on I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface   openmymind.net/Im-Too-Dum... · Posted by u/begoon
dns_snek · 12 hours ago
That's a false dichotomy, I'll take minimal bitrotten docs in a community wiki over no docs. There's no excuse not to at least have a stub that says "these features are evolving quickly but here are 10 open source projects that should serve as good references".

Something - anything. As much as I like Zig, I dread returning to it after a few months of being out of the loop.

0x696C6961 · 10 hours ago
It's not a false dichotomy, it's a bandwidth issue. I'd rather the core team focus on stuff like incremental compilation.
0x696C6961 commented on Go is still not good   blog.habets.se/2025/07/Go... · Posted by u/ustad
achierius · 21 hours ago
This isn't an issue of intelligence, and GP didn't imply that it was.
0x696C6961 · 13 hours ago
They very much did imply that.
0x696C6961 commented on I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface   openmymind.net/Im-Too-Dum... · Posted by u/begoon
hardwaresofton · 16 hours ago
I'm not a Zig PM but the first obvious fix for the issues the OP wrote about is to write better documentation, including usage examples (the more the better, almost to a fault). Also doubles as a good time to reflect on whether the user is having to do too much.

If the tradeoff was absolute performance/avoiding introducing load-bearing performance-lowering abstraction I think that goal was achieved, but DX may have gone out the window.

0x696C6961 · 15 hours ago
Writing good docs/examples takes a lot of effort. It would be a waste considering the amount of churn that happens in zig at this point.
0x696C6961 commented on Go is still not good   blog.habets.se/2025/07/Go... · Posted by u/ustad
jack_h · a day ago
It’s not about making zero mistakes, it’s about learning from previous languages which made mistakes and not repeating them. I decided against using go pretty early on because I recognized just how many mistakes they were repeating that would end up haunting maintainers.
0x696C6961 · a day ago
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0x696C6961 commented on Vibe Debugging: Enterprises' Up and Coming Nightmare   marketsaintefficient.subs... · Posted by u/someoneloser
chickenzzzzu · a day ago
I wrote a full fledged 3D exporter in 6 days without a single test case. Used by thousands of people every day.

How did I test and debug? Run my code and printf.

0x696C6961 · a day ago
Try working on a project with lots of contributors.
0x696C6961 commented on Go is still not good   blog.habets.se/2025/07/Go... · Posted by u/ustad
stouset · a day ago
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0x696C6961 · a day ago
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KarmaCake day161November 10, 2024View Original