Zig got me excited when I stumbled into it about a year ago, but life got busy and then the io changes came along and I thought about holding off until things settled down - it's still a very young language.
But reading the first couple of chapters has piqued my interest in a language and the people who are working with it in a way I've not run into since I encountered Ruby in ~2006 (before Rails hit v1.0), I just hope the quality stays this high all the way through.
though maybe AI is getting to the point it can do stuff like this somewhat decently
jasonjmcghee•57m ago
> The Zigbook intentionally contains no AI-generated content—it is hand-written, carefully curated, and continuously updated to reflect the latest language features and best practices.
I just don't buy it. I'm 99% sure this is written by an LLM.
Can the author... Convince me otherwise?
> This journey begins with simplicity—the kind you encounter on the first day. By the end, you will discover a different kind of simplicity: the kind you earn by climbing through complexity and emerging with complete understanding on the other side.
> Welcome to the Zigbook. Your transformation starts now.
...
> You will know where every byte lives in memory, when the compiler executes your code, and what machine instructions your abstractions compile to. No hidden allocations. No mystery overhead. No surprises.
...
> This is not about memorizing syntax. This is about earning mastery.
PaulRobinson•50m ago
Can I also ask: so what if it is or it isn't?
While AI slop is infuriating, and the bubble hype is maddening, I'm not sure every time somebody sees some content they don't like the style of we just call out it "must" be AI, and debate if it is or it isn't is not at least as maddening. It feels like all content published now gets debated like this, and I'm definitely not enjoying it.
maxbond•15m ago
As to why it matters, doesn't it matter when people lie? Aren't you worried about the veracity of the text if it's not only generated but was presented otherwise? That wouldn't erode your trust that the author reviewed the text and corrected any hallucinations even by an iota?
Rochus•49m ago
maxbond•23m ago
Rochus•19m ago
maxbond•15m ago
I intend to learn Zig when it reaches 1.0 so I was interested in this book. Now that I see it was probably generated by someone who claimed otherwise, I suspect this book would have as much of a chance of hurting my understanding as helping it. So I'll skip it. Does that really sound petty?
littlestymaar•6m ago
I wouldn't mind a technical person transparently using AI for doing the writing which isn't necessary there strength, as long as the content itself comes from the author's expertise and the generated writing is thoroughly vetted to make sure there's no hallucinationated misunderstanding in the final text. At the end of the day this would just increase the amount of high quality technical content available, because the set of people with both a good writing skill and a deep technical expertise is much narrower than just the former.
But claiming you didn't use AI when you did breaks all trust between you a your readership and makes the end result pretty much worthless because why read a book if you don't trust the author not to waste your time?
rudedogg•46m ago
gamegoblin•32m ago
[1] one of the only AI detectors that actually works, 99.9% accuracy, 0.1% false positive
simonklee•22m ago
It doesn't take away from the fact that someone used a bunch of time and effort on this project.
jasonjmcghee•18m ago
simonklee•15m ago
the-anarchist•15m ago