Andrew Kelley quit his job in 2018 to build a programming language. Eight years later, Zig powers Ghostty, TigerBeetle and Uber's cross-compilation. It's top 5 most admired on Stack Overflow. There's just one thing missing: 1.0. Andrew Kelley explains why.

Vitaly talked to Andrew about:
◼️ Why Zig has no 1.0 after a decade, and why that's deliberate
◼️ Why Zig left GitHub
◼️ Why Zig banned AI from Zig
◼️ What makes Zig better than C (and why every other C replacement failed)
◼️ Andrew’s take on Open Source 

00:00 Intro
00:45 Why Create Zig? Andrew Kelley Explains
01:56 How Rust, Go and C All Failed
04:54 What Is Zig Used For?
06:01 Who Uses Zig in Production?
07:43 Bun, Anthropic and Zig for AI
08:08 How Uber Uses Zig With Go
08:50 Why Is It Called "Zig"?
09:28 Why Zig Isn't 1.0 After 10 Years
11:11 “Worse is better”
13:06 $670K Zig Foundation 
14:11 Can Sponsors Influence Zig Development?
14:31 Andrew Kelley's $154K Salary
16:28 $100 Million Challange
18:18 Where Zig Foundation Money Goes
20:15 Why Zig Left Reddit and Twitter
21:00 Why Zig Left GitHub 
22:23 Why Codeberg?
24:22 Why Zig Moved Away From LLVM
25:48 50ms Compile Time for a Million Lines
26:38 No LLM / No AI Policy
29:50 How Zig Detects AI-Generated Content
30:48 Zig's AI Paradox
32:44 Andrew Kelley on Vibe Coding
35:33 Will Humans Still Write Code?
36:51 Top 3 Open Source Projects of All Time
39:17 The Firefox Problem
41:03 Why Zig better then C?
42:14 "Zig Embraces C More Than C Itself"
42:50 Will Zig replace C?
43:39 Zig vs Rust
47:23 Zig’s Killer Feature
48:47 Unused Variables
50:28 I/O Interface
52:34 How to learn Zig
53:22 Moving From C to Zig
54:26 Should You Learn Zig as Your First Language?
55:13 Andrew Kelley's Dev Setup
56:34 JetBrains IDEs
58:03 Why AI Tools Are Worse Than a Rename
58:42 What is BDFL
59:50 Why One Dictator Beats a Committee
01:01:07 What Happens If Andrew Kelley Leaves?
01:02:37 "Zig Is a Shrine to Computers"
01:02:37 Hardest Part of Building Zig
01:05:49  Burnout Advice for Developers
01:08:04 Joy Outside of Programming
01:10:38 What Does Success Look Like for Zig?
01:12:17 "I'm Basically Unemployable!”

Visit Zig’s Website: https://ziglang.org/
Follow Andrew Kelley on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@andrewrk
Follow Vitaly Bragilevsky (host) on X: https://x.com/VBragilevsky

#Zig #ZigLang #AndrewKelley #programming  #systemsprogramming #rust #clanguage #github #opensource

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Andrew Kelley, creator of the Zig programming language, discusses the origins of Zig (frustration with C++, Rust, Go, and JavaScript while building a DAW), its design philosophy of doing more with less, and why it hasn't reached 1.0 after 10 years. He explains the Zig Software Foundation's $670K annual budget, its 501c3 nonprofit structure, and why they moved from GitHub to Codeberg due to CI failures. Kelley defends the strict no-AI/LLM policy for contributions, calling AI PRs 'invariably garbage' that waste review time. He compares Zig to C and Rust, highlights real-world users like Ghostty, TigerBeetle, Bun, and Uber, and discusses Zig's killer feature: a zero-dependency, cross-compilation toolchain. He also shares his skepticism of vibe coding, preference for nonprofit software organizations, and long-term vision for Zig as a C replacement for the next 50 years.

Zig 2026: No-AI Policy, $670K Foundation, Left GitHub & Why Zig Isn’t 1.0 - Andrew Kelley Explains