Andrew Kelley
Creator of the Zig programming language; president and lead developer of the Zig Software Foundation.
Andrew Kelley did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
Latest GitHub
What they believe
-
Computers and software should always serve the person directly using them, not the interests of third parties.
Computers should always serve the person directly interacting with them.
andrewkelley.meSaid 31 Jul 2026This on korrents
-
Jumping into problems you're not yet equipped to solve, even if it leads to mediocre engineering, is a healthy way for young people and students to learn and grow.
I see it as quite a healthy attitude, particularly for young people and students. This is the best way to level up and learn new things.
andrewkelley.meSaid 9 Jul 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
13 October
9 August
8 August
31 July
From one piece Don't Take the Black Pill (Text Adaptation) 3 beliefs · andrewkelley.me
-
Their words
We are learning that software quality was maintained only through the will of software engineers combined with their accidentally strong negotiation position in the job market.
-
korrents.com
A person does not truly control a piece of software if they do not control its source code.Their words
If you don't control the source code, you are not in control.
-
korrents.com
Computers and software should always serve the person directly using them, not the interests of third parties.Their words
Computers should always serve the person directly interacting with them.
9 July
From one piece My Thoughts on the Bun Rust Rewrite 3 beliefs · andrewkelley.me
-
Their words
The sleight of hand misdirects the reader away from the main way bugs are eliminated: by dedicating engineering resources to it.
-
Their words
It's one thing to choose a poor work-life balance for oneself; a different thing entirely to demand it of others
-
Their words
I see it as quite a healthy attitude, particularly for young people and students. This is the best way to level up and learn new things.
3 July
2 July
29 May
14 May
4 May
29 October 2025
-
korrents.com
Reusable code should take an allocator parameter only if it allocates, and an I/O parameter only if it performs I/O.Their words
Reusable code should accept an Allocator parameter if it needs to allocate, and it should accept an Io parameter if it needs to perform I/O operations.
29 August 2025
From one piece An Open Letter to Everyone I've Butted Heads With 3 beliefs · andrewkelley.me
-
Their words
If the leadership of one of your chosen favorite technologies makes a decision that you don't like, you are fucked. There is a huge range of decision-making in which the effects weigh heavily on any particular individual, and yet forking is not a realistic option.
-
korrents.com
When people care about something but feel powerless to change it, their only resort is to lash out.Their words
When we care about something, but we perceive futility in our efforts to change it, our only resort is to lash out.
-
Their words
Programming language and toolchain technology can have a huge impact. Specifically, even minor differences can affect the day-to-day lives of a large number of hours for a large number of people.
24 July 2025
14 July 2025
30 May 2024
22 March 2024
From one piece Redis Renamed to Redict 2 beliefs · andrewkelley.me
-
Their words
In short summary, the licenses limit the freedoms of what one can do with the software in order for Redis Labs to be solely enriched, while asking for volunteer labor, and having already
-
korrents.com
Handing stewardship of Redis to a company whose goal is extracting profit was a mistake for the projectTheir words
I think that was an unfortunate move because their goal is mainly to extract profit from the software project rather than to uphold the ideals of Free and Open Source Software.
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
RedictTheir words
In other words, Redict is the true spiritual successor to what was once Redis.
4 February 2024
17 October 2023
23 August 2023
24 March 2020
24 June 2019
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
musl libcTheir words
The Zig project owes a lot to musl, for many reasons
4 December 2018
15 September 2018
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 12 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Computers and software should always serve the person directly using them, not the interests of third parties.
Computers should always serve the person directly interacting with them.
Don't Take the Black Pill (Text Adaptation) Said 31 Jul 2026
A person does not truly control a piece of software if they do not control its source code.
If you don't control the source code, you are not in control.
Don't Take the Black Pill (Text Adaptation) Said 31 Jul 2026
Software quality has historically been maintained by engineers' own will combined with their strong negotiating position in the job market, rather than by other forces.
We are learning that software quality was maintained only through the will of software engineers combined with their accidentally strong negotiation position in the job market.
Don't Take the Black Pill (Text Adaptation) Said 31 Jul 2026
Show 9 more
Jumping into problems you're not yet equipped to solve, even if it leads to mediocre engineering, is a healthy way for young people and students to learn and grow.
I see it as quite a healthy attitude, particularly for young people and students. This is the best way to level up and learn new things.
My Thoughts on the Bun Rust Rewrite Said 9 Jul 2026
It is one thing to accept a poor work-life balance for yourself, and a different thing entirely to demand it of the people you manage.
It's one thing to choose a poor work-life balance for oneself; a different thing entirely to demand it of others
My Thoughts on the Bun Rust Rewrite Said 9 Jul 2026
Bugs are eliminated mainly by dedicating engineering resources to finding and fixing them, not by choosing a particular language or style guide.
The sleight of hand misdirects the reader away from the main way bugs are eliminated: by dedicating engineering resources to it.
My Thoughts on the Bun Rust Rewrite Said 9 Jul 2026
Reusable code should take an allocator parameter only if it allocates, and an I/O parameter only if it performs I/O.
Reusable code should accept an Allocator parameter if it needs to allocate, and it should accept an Io parameter if it needs to perform I/O operations.
Zig's New Async I/O (Text Version) Said 29 Oct 2025
Minor differences in programming language and toolchain technology can affect the day-to-day lives of a large number of people.
Programming language and toolchain technology can have a huge impact. Specifically, even minor differences can affect the day-to-day lives of a large number of hours for a large number of people.
An Open Letter to Everyone I've Butted Heads With Said 29 Aug 2025
When people care about something but feel powerless to change it, their only resort is to lash out.
When we care about something, but we perceive futility in our efforts to change it, our only resort is to lash out.
An Open Letter to Everyone I've Butted Heads With Said 29 Aug 2025
When the leadership of a technology someone depends on makes a decision they dislike, forking is rarely a realistic option.
If the leadership of one of your chosen favorite technologies makes a decision that you don't like, you are fucked. There is a huge range of decision-making in which the effects weigh heavily on any particular individual, and yet forking is not a realistic option.
An Open Letter to Everyone I've Butted Heads With Said 29 Aug 2025
Handing stewardship of Redis to a company whose goal is extracting profit was a mistake for the project
I think that was an unfortunate move because their goal is mainly to extract profit from the software project rather than to uphold the ideals of Free and Open Source Software.
Redis Renamed to Redict Said 22 Mar 2024
Source-available licences like the SSPL take volunteer labour while restricting the freedoms that made it worth giving
In short summary, the licenses limit the freedoms of what one can do with the software in order for Redis Labs to be solely enriched, while asking for volunteer labor, and having already
Redis Renamed to Redict Said 22 Mar 2024
Beliefs others hold too
Handing stewardship of Redis to a company whose goal is extracting profit was a mistake for the project 2 hold this
I think that was an unfortunate move because their goal is mainly to extract profit from the software project rather than to uphold the ideals of Free and Open Source Software.
Redis Renamed to Redict Said 22 Mar 2024
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 5 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Recommends Redict
In other words, Redict is the true spiritual successor to what was once Redis.
andrewkelley.me 22 Mar 2024
Recommends musl libc
The Zig project owes a lot to musl, for many reasons
andrewkelley.me 24 Jun 2019
Mixed on Bonobo Extreme
This thing is a monster. It's huge, bulky, and heavy.
andrewkelley.me 12 Jun 2014
Show 2 more
Recommends Introduction to EBU R128
I recommend this excellent Introduction to EBU R128 by Florian Camerer:
andrewkelley.me 22 Apr 2014
Loved Amarok 1.4
Back in 2009, my music player of choice was Amarok 1.4. This was by far the best music player I had ever used on Windows, Mac, or Linux, especially when combined with the wonderful ReplayGain plugin.
andrewkelley.me 22 Apr 2014
Where they publish
Site andrewkelley.me Personal blog: Zig language design, open source funding and occasional hardware reviews.
Recent
- Don't Take the Black Pill (Text Adaptation) 31 Jul 2026 This is a blog post version of the talk I delivered at Software Should Work 2026. Shoutouts to Isaac Van Doren for running such a delightful conference and nailing it first try, and for infecting us all with his charmin…
- My Thoughts on the Bun Rust Rewrite 9 Jul 2026 Context: Rewriting Bun in Rust History When Jarred joined the Zig community about 5 years ago, I described him as someone who had strong "beginner energy". That is, he moved fast and tried a lot of different stuff, jump…
- Zig's New Async I/O (Text Version) 29 Oct 2025 In celebration of the std.Io introduction patchset landing today, here is the text version of a short, interactive demo I gave at Zigtoberfest 2025. This is a preview of the new async I/O primitives that will be availab…
Show 17 more
- An Open Letter to Everyone I've Butted Heads With 29 Aug 2025 Note: This blog post is not a reaction to recent events or some kind of apology. Nothing happened; this is just me doing self-reflection. Zig turned 10 years old, and I've been thinking a lot about the project overall,…
- Renting is for Suckers 24 Jul 2025 A genie offers you a choice: 50% chance to gain 10 million USD 100% chance to gain 1 million USD Which do you pick? Your answer, of course, depends on how much capital you have. If you are struggling to pay rent, then t…
- OpenZFS Bug Ported to Zig 14 Jul 2025 Someone on IRC shared this link with me: An (almost) catastrophic OpenZFS bug and the humans that made it (and Rust is here too) They wanted to know, would Zig catch this? I went through the trouble of porting the code…
- Zig's New CLI Progress Bar Explained 30 May 2024 Sometimes, programming projects are too easy and boring. Sometimes, they're too hard, never ending or producing subpar results. This past week I had the pleasure of completing a project that felt like maximum difficulty…
- Redis Renamed to Redict 22 Mar 2024 Redict was originally created by Salvatore Sanfilippo under the name "Redis". Around 2018 he started losing interest in the project to pursue a science fiction career and gave stewardship of the project to Redis Labs. I…
- Why We Can't Have Nice Software 4 Feb 2024 The problem with software is that it's too powerful. It creates so much wealth so fast that it's virtually impossible to not distribute it. Think about it: sure, it takes a while to make useful software. But then you ma…
- The Techno-Optimist Manifesto 17 Oct 2023 Technology is a tool that enhances the power of the wielder. Our tools are getting more and more powerful. Some tools, such as nuclear fission, are so powerful that they pose an existential threat to all of humanity, be…
- So Long, Twitter and Reddit 23 Aug 2023 It's been over three years since my last blog post. I think that the website code started to feel like it had bitrotted, and so making new blog posts became onerous. But I've taken the time to redo this website using Zi…
- `zig cc`: a Powerful Drop-In Replacement for GCC/Clang 24 Mar 2020 If you have heard of Zig before, you may know it as a promising new programming language which is ambitiously trying to overthrow C as the de-facto systems language. But did you know that it also can straight up compile…
- Why I'm donating $150/month (10% of my income) to the musl libc project 24 Jun 2019 One year ago, I quit my day job to work on Zig full time. Since then, the project has seen a steady growth in funding. Thanks to the people donating, Zig is on track to become fully sustainable before my savings run out…
- Using Zig to Provide Stack Traces on Kernel Panic for a Bare Bones Operating System 4 Dec 2018 Last week, I reached an exciting milestone in my career as a programmer. For the first time in my life, I ran code directly on hardware, with no Operating System sitting between the bare metal and my code. For some cont…
- String Matching based on Compile Time Perfect Hashing in Zig 15 Sept 2018 Inspired by cttrie - Compile time TRIE based string matching, I decided to see what this solution would look like in Zig. Here's the API I came up with: const ph = perfectHash([][]const u8{ "a", "ab", "abc", }); switch…
- I Quit My Cushy Job at OkCupid to Live on Donations to Zig 7 Jun 2018 I am fortunate to be one of those people who started tinkering with code in their teens, and then found themselves in the position where their hobby could not only pay rent, but afford a comfortable standard of living,…
- Zig: January 2018 in Review 11 Feb 2018 One month (and a few days, sorry I'm late!) has passed since I did the December 2017 writeup, and so it's time for another month-in-review for my esteemed sponsors. LLVM 6 Readiness LLVM 6.0.0rc2 was just announced on t…
- Unsafe Zig is Safer Than Unsafe Rust 24 Jan 2018 Consider the following Rust code: struct Foo { a: i32, b: i32, } fn main() { unsafe { let mut array: [u8; 1024] = [1; 1024]; let foo = std::mem::transmute::(&mut array[0]); foo.a += 1; } } This pattern is pretty common…
- Zig: December 2017 in Review 3 Jan 2018 I figured since I ask people to donate monthly, I will start giving a monthly progress report to provide accountability. So here's everything that happened in Zig land in December 2017: enum tag types You can now specif…
- A Better Way to Implement Bit Fields 17 Feb 2017 One of the main use cases for the Zig Programming Language is operating system development and embedded development. So, what better way to make sure the language is suitable than to work on a project in this field? Thi…
Link verified 4 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
GitHub github.com/andrewrk Zig and his older personal projects.
Recent
- andrewkelley.me — my personal site 13 Oct 2026
- StaticHttpFileServer — Zig module for serving a directory of files from memory via HTTP 9 Aug 2026
- xml — Tokenize XML 8 Aug 2026
Show 5 more
- pulseaudio — pulseaudio with the build system replaced by zig 3 Jul 2026
- zig-vulkan-triangle — simple triangle displayed using vulkan, xcb, and zig 2 Jul 2026
- tetris — A simple tetris clone written in zig programming language. 29 May 2026
- asterage — RCade game 14 May 2026
- poop — Performance Optimizer Observation Platform 4 May 2026
Link verified 4 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Elsewhere codeberg.org/andrewrk Where he now hosts personal projects such as Groove Basin.
Link verified 4 Sept 2026.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.