[HN Gopher] Announcing The Zig Software Foundation
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Announcing The Zig Software Foundation
Author : kristoff_it
Score : 84 points
Date : 2020-07-11 21:32 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ziglang.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ziglang.org)
| dleslie wrote:
| Well this is exciting. The biggest risk of Zig, among many risks,
| seemed to me to be that it was a one-individual show and so privy
| to their whims and subject to their ongoing interest and
| availability. Seeing an organization created with the intent to
| foster its development is a step in the right direction.
| kristoff_it wrote:
| The show is live here: https://zig.show
| rurban wrote:
| So this is all for tax purposes, that sponsors can deduct their
| payments, and Andrew doesn't have to pay VAT on his income?
| pixelherodev wrote:
| Yes. That is clearly exactly what is going on here. It's all
| about money. That's why the blog post explicitly talked about
| how focusing on money is a mistake.
| ifreund wrote:
| No, this is to make the transition from a one-man show into a
| sustainable organization.
| zengid wrote:
| No it's to make sure donors know that the money they give will
| have a legal obligation to be used to achieve the mission
| statement of the organization.
| banachtarski wrote:
| Maybe an unpopular opinion among Zig programmers, but the lack of
| operator overloading is/was the true buzzkill for me as someone
| that tends to do a lot of math/science work in C and C++ both.
| Getting operators in C++ is one of the biggest productivity
| boosts compared to when I work in C.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I think it's fine to say why Zig doesn't work for you as long
| as you make it clear what the limitation is and why, and don't
| use that as an argument to say it's a bad language - just a bad
| fit for your particular use-case.
|
| Out of curiosity, aren't there other languages designed with
| more appropriate expressiveness for your needs then? Julia, for
| example?
| ddevault wrote:
| Congrats! This looks like it has been done well. Good news for
| Zig and I hope it sets a good example for other organizations to
| follow.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Now that there are multiple people, I wonder if they will fold in
| the separate program needed to parse tabs and carriage returns.
| gmcabrita wrote:
| > The Zig language accepts hard tabs and carriage returns. The
| self-hosted compiler implements the Zig language correctly;
| accepting hard tabs and carriage returns. However, the self-
| hosted compiler is not yet complete, and what people are using
| in reality is the stage1 compiler, which does not accept hard
| tabs.
|
| https://github.com/ziglang/zig/wiki/FAQ#why-does-zig-force-m...
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| That seems to imply that zig is only right now being used to
| make the self hosted compiler.
| hirundo wrote:
| > When I worked at a publicly traded dating website, female users
| were known internally as "inventory". It makes sense from a
| certain perspective, if your primary focus is extracting value
| from paying customers. But when your motto is "together we serve
| the users", it would be ridiculous to imagine something so
| inhumane. To me, this is the crux of the issue. I've never been
| more motivated in my life, than to serve the community around me,
| and help people accomplish their own goals.
|
| "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or
| the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to
| their own interest." - Adam Smith
|
| It's great that you're motivated by helping people. Sincerely.
| But most people aren't built that way. We get up on Monday
| morning to make a small circle of precious lives better, not just
| anyone's. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but it is. Therefore
| reorganizing society around service rather than profit likely
| means a much smaller economy. To many people that's a feature.
| pixelherodev wrote:
| In my experience, the people who talk about how everyone _else_
| acts selfishly tend to be the most selfish of all.
| JackFr wrote:
| That speaks to your cognitive biases.
| [deleted]
| dnautics wrote:
| adam smith ALSO wrote the Theory of Moral Sentiment, which I
| think also falls in line with some of the things written in the
| announcement.
| airstrike wrote:
| > Therefore reorganizing society around service rather than
| profit likely means a far smaller economy.
|
| It probably just means you get outcompeted by people who put
| profit first and can afford to pay their employees more
| competitive wages, invest higher amounts in Capex and R&D, and
| generally best you at running a firm.
|
| Profit is the goal we're all maximizing for, like it or not.
| And greed is inherent to human being, which makes Capitalism
| the most successful economic system given that the inherently
| greedy efforts of an individual eventually creates prosperity
| for the collective (over a long enough time-horizon and with
| regulations aiming to prevent local maxima such a factory with
| 20-hour shifts)
|
| It seems to me that we can't change greediness, and we can't
| change the fact that companies run on profit. What we can seem
| to change is customers' preferences. If we ingrain into
| people's mindsets that buying from companies that aim to serve
| the collective (seek the global maximum over local maxima),
| then we can nudge corporations to act on the behalf all of us
| rather than just its stakeholders
| klyrs wrote:
| It's true, you can't stop that which you accept and toil for.
|
| The arguments you're making are familiar to the gray-hairs in
| open source software. It was long predicted that our efforts
| would fade under competition with the Oracles and Microsofts
| of the world.
|
| > Profit is the goal we're all maximizing for, like it or
| not.
|
| You're not alone in your bubble, but you might want to peek
| outside of it once and a while.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > Profit is the goal we're all maximizing for, like it or
| not.
|
| Err, no. People want happiness, fulfilment, friendship, joy,
| meaning, safety, and a bunch of other things. Money can help
| obtain some (but not all) of those things, but it is
| instrumental in all cases.
|
| > It seems to me that we can't change greediness, and we
| can't change the fact that companies run on profit.
|
| Plenty of countries run system which are not optimised purely
| for profit. For example, Germany's corporations frequently
| act in the public good in ways that don't maximise their own
| profit. From my perspective, such countries seem to be doing
| much better than the US which is closer to being purely
| profit driven.
|
| > It probably just means you get outcompeted by people who
| put profit first and can afford to pay their employees more
| competitive wages, invest higher amounts in Capex and R&D,
| and generally best you at running a firm.
|
| This is a problem with our economic system, not a virtue, or
| even a necessary property.
|
| > Capitalism the most successful economic system
|
| Capitalism is only seen as successful because it has
| historically been competing with communism and feudalism.
| These are from the only possible economic systems. And given
| all its faults it seems far from likely that Capitalism is
| the best one.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| Just because it's a non-profit, doesn't mean the folks working
| for it won't make money and have decent lives. In fact the post
| pretty clearly states that as a desired goal, " Part of the
| goal of the ZSF is to provide excellent jobs that make people
| happy to work, and leave them financially well off, as well as
| having gained the kind of work experience that they wish to
| invest in for their own careers."
|
| Now the question I have, is it possible to create recurring
| revenue at a non-profit that is based of contracts with
| customers, or must all the revenue come from donations?
| thebradbain wrote:
| "But most people aren't built that way" seems to be a pretty
| big assertion that, if really that obvious, would seem to imply
| some of the central questions posed and grappled with by
| centuries of religion and philosophy -- "are humans naturally
| greedy or generous?" or the age-old government/cultural policy
| debates on collectivism versus individualism -- are nothing
| more than superfluous navel gazing.
|
| I don't have an answer either way. But I'm inclined to question
| this idea that just because things are the way they are now
| means that is the way they always were and will always be. How
| many people would be happy to expand that "small circle of
| precious lives" they make better if they could, but can't due
| to the fact that, modern life now is seemingly a tangle of
| actively contradicting incentives? And how many people would,
| if they knew others would provide for all their needs and
| wants, act as solely a parasite to the system that feeds them?
| And would it be a critical mass that makes the whole system
| untenable, or just a relatively small group of bad apples
| accounted for by the number of people who give more than they
| take?
|
| Again, I don't know the answer, and I do not pretend to. But I
| do think a blanket statement that more people are greedy than
| generous is more a commentary on modern politics - that maybe
| our current system of society forces people to behave that way
| - than the human condition.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It 's great that you're motivated by helping people.
| Sincerely. But most people aren't built that way._
|
| Or that's what an 18th century quote says. Several centuries of
| later evolutionary, psychological, and sociological research
| doesn't much agree...
| pzone wrote:
| This is a "smaller" economy as in "more tight-knit," not as in
| "smaller GDP."
| hirundo wrote:
| Smaller as in the butcher, brewer and baker don't work as
| hard so beef, beer and bread are more scarce.
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