joelreymont's comments

joelreymont | 2 months ago | on: Hacking LLDB for a great Zig debugging experience

Debugging Zig in LLDB is painful.

Slices show up as { ptr, len }, optionals are unreadable, and slice[0] just errors out. Python formatters help a bit but don’t fix expressions. zig-lldb fixes everything… if you’re willing to rebuild LLDB and maintain a fork.

zdb is a native LLDB plugin that sits in the middle:

- Works with stock LLDB (Homebrew / system) - Native C++ type summaries (no Python) - Zig-style expressions work: slice[0], opt.?, err catch x

(lldb) p int_slice[0] (int) $0 = 1

How? By calling LLDB’s internal APIs via versioned offset tables and rewriting expressions on the fly.

Limitations: no Variables View expansion (ABI issues with std::function). CLI debugging works great.

Check out the Github repo at https://github.com/joelreymont/zdb!

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg

Moving away from Github may end up killing the project.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

I'll gladly discuss at length things that are near and dear to my heart.

Facing random people in the public court of opinion is not one of them!

Also, there's long-form writing in my blog posts, Twitter and Reddit.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

Remind me please, when did I sign up to meet your expectations?

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

With all due respect, try to read things before opining on them.

The PR explains why I did the work.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg

It's both but the focus is on the future.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg

I'm not trying to say that this is now projects ought to work right now.

I do think this is where we are heading, though.

No, existing open source projects are not ready for this and likely won't ever be.

It will start in the corporate world and maybe already has.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg

Yep, that's me!

I will look into renaming myself, although don't think HN allows this.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg

It was a bug in my own modes to the Zig compiler not in the stock compiler itself.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg

This ought to be automated using AI.

It could first judge whether the PR is frivolous, then try to review it, then flag a human if necessary.

The problem is that Github, or whatever system hosts the process, should actively prevent projects from being DDOS-ed with PR reviews since using AI costs real money.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

This is an excerpt from the session where AI is writing my Lisp compiler. What do you call this? I call this doing what a competent developer does!

39/40 tests pass. The native reader works for integers, hexadecimal, lists, strings and quote forms. The one failure is symbol comparison (known limitation).

  Based on the context summary and the user's note about cleanup, I should:
  1. Continue Phase 3.5 self-compilation
  2. Clean up the repo structure

  Let me first update the todo list and then investigate the SIGKILL issue more
  thoroughly. The issue is that combining reader source with file I/O code causes
   the executable to be killed. Let me check if buffer-to-string with reader
  works:

 Let me test specifically reader + file I/O combined (which is what the
  self-hosting test needs):

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

Are you speaking from experience?

Have you actually tried writing a "list" compiler?

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

Check the 2nd PR, the one in my repo and not the one that was rejected.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg

I agree with you.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

It's not. It's absolutely justified for the OCaml maintainers to reject this PR.

I feel completely different about my Zig PR [1] but, hey, it's not my playground and the Zig folks seem to be particularly opinionated.

[1] https://ziggit.dev/t/bug-wrong-segment-ordering-for-macos-us...

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

Which is something I agreed with and apologized for, and admitted was somewhat of a PR stunt.

Now, what's your question?

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

I had $1000 in Claude credits to spend for the greater good.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

I'm strictly talking about the 10-line Zig PR above.

Well-documented and tested.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

You can ask AI to write documentation for humans.

Also, I'll try to break up the PR sometime but I'm already running Claude using two $200/mo accounts, in addition to another $200/mo ChatGPT, and still running into time limits.

I want to finish my compilers first.

joelreymont | 3 months ago | on: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

It wouldn't do much.

I find that ChatGPT 5.1 was much better at reviewing this code than writing it so I had it review Claude's output until the review was clean.

This is in addition to making sure existing and newly generated compiler tests pass and that the output in the PR / blog post is generated by actually running lldb through its paces.

I did have a "Oh, shit!" moment after I posted a nice set of examples and discovered that the AI made them up. At least it honestly told me so!