I used to believe in Andrew Kelley.

# I used to believe in Andrew Kelley.

In 2023 I listed out my heroes in a Markdown document, and what qualities they had that I wished to obtain. There were six then, and now there are five.

Andrew's latest polemic is the straw that broke the camel's back. I can't even shill for Zig to my friends and colleagues out of fear of my recommendation being interpreted as approval of the Benevolent Dictator's communication. There was a time when I was a gleefully intolerable supporter of Zig (I even made two small contributions to the compiler). My zeal has only waned since then, despite my lasting belief that Zig is the best language available today.

I believe that the average Zig devotee is an above-average programmer. They've been steadily culling the weak, even at the cost of adoption. The community is a shrinking body heightening its walls; a cell wishing to reach absolute impermeability. And that's exactly where Zig is headed. Absolute impermeability. The community's roots are steeped in open hostility (a watered-down form of Andrew's rhetoric), and the practice has alienated me. I imagine prospective newcomers share my confusion. After the dishwasher post, it appeared that Andrew held an increasingly cynical view of . . . well, everything? And now, instead of letting a project quietly leave the ecosystem, he proudly attempts to make a pariah of its lead developer.

Andrew and Jarred are, in a sense, coworkers.

> Jarred was already writing slop well before he had access to LLMs.

I can't fathom anyone I've worked with smearing me as publicly as Andrew has attacked (yes, attacked) Jarred. Maybe the rules are different when you work on free software. I guess I just don't get it. So I'm leaving now — with this missive to ZSF.

> Together, we serve the users!