All: can we please talk about something more interesting than how you don't like the language choice? If a project belongs on HN's front page, which I presume this one does, there must be more interesting things to talk about than that.
antirez is a bright guy and worth paying attention to, but I think this is just him having some fun.
Edit: aha, here's what he's actually using it for.
In terms of binary size, memory usage, you probably can't beat a slim C project.
Difficulty of clean code/memory leaks/security aside, I think everyone should read or write some C every once in a while. Fix that software that doesn't work quite right on wine. Learn the linux kernel enough to fix a bug for hardware you own. Start some project like this. You might learn something, or strengthen some old mental muscles.
Zig can and do routinely beat it