October, 9, 2024 archives

I keep running into things about the Zig community that intrigue me. The latest was this post by Loris Cro about “Critical Social Infrastructure for Zig Communities,” where these paragraphs really grabbed me:

We definitely also need bolder moves, but for now let's try to take it one step at a time, starting from structuring our communities around the idea that other interesting Zig communities exist out there, and that we should try harder to at least stay informed of what we all are collectively working on.

Conversely, we should also strive to make it easier for others to keep track of what we are doing. The time for bolder moves will come, but this a strong prerequisite before can we get to those.

Maybe it is because it is a new and small community compared to PHP’s, but the Zig community seems pretty great. Mitchell Hashimoto’s investment in the community is a good sign.

A lot of what Loris wrote about also brought to mind the IndieWeb principles and my own interest in promoting the ideal of doing open source development in the open using open tools. I chafe every time a community is centered on Discord or Slack, or finding that the real discussions and decision-making is happening in inaccessible places. One person’s tight-knit community can be another’s exclusive club.