I literally had to stop what I was doing and write about this immediately. This is a nerdy, programming language thing, but it’s a thing that made me smile and filled me with hope.
I first heard about the Zig Programming Language years ago. But I’m a very cautious adopter of new tech so it just sat there as “a thing that exists”.
This week, though, I came across this YouTube interview with the creator of Zig. And I had to say some things about it.
This guy is smart, considered, articulate and humble.
I love his stance on business. (The Zig Foundation is a proper non-profit)
I love what he thinks about money. (he’s paid an senior engineer’s salary and that is enough)
I love his approach to open source. (MIT license, no v1.0 until its ready, it’s a gift with no strings attached)
I love that he just likes computers. And Zig is an expression of that.
I love that he thinks that reducing errors is a key path to good software and that quality is such a focus.
I love that Zig is an educational and mentoring project – contributors are identified and future collaborators and mentored as such.
I even love that he thinks running one marathon is enough, but is able to admit that he will probably run another.
We need more people in tech like this.
I hope he doesn’t lose his focus and values.
Zig might have to become more than just “something that exists” for me.