Comment by johnisgood | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnisgood | Hacker News Reader

> When I posted this to lobste.rs, gingerBill (creator of Odin) was kind enough to make a more direct translation of the C code into Odin.

Glad he has helped you. Maybe he listened to me, maybe not, but last time (almost year ago?) I saw an interaction with him on GitHub, he was nothing short of an a**hole, and not in the sense of Linus or Theo. In fact, he was not educational, he was just like "Many problems. I could write this better, GTFO". I saw it on GitHub, so I am reluctant to submit a PR of any sort myself in before he tells me he can implement it better and rejects my PR with this reasoning as he did with someone else. Like yeah, of course you may be able to implement it better, whereas someone new to the language might not, even though I tried it (the rejected PR, which was supposed to end up in vendor/ not the core library, AFAIK) and it was fully functional (and without any leaks), and to my eyes it seemed fine as well, but maybe I do not know Odin enough. In fact, I probably do not know it as much as he does, but by his logic, everything should be implemented by him because he knows better. This experience (albeit not mine) was enough to put me off of Odin. The C3 lead developer, on the other hand, was extremely helpful here on HN and on GitHub as well.

I have a feeling he has helped you because of the article and some fame along with it. :)

So my comment reflects a negative publicity. I cannot find the GitHub link right now, but it is there as it cannot be deleted, AFAIK. Look around rejected PRs in / for vendor/, I think. I am not logged in to GitHub and I cannot do so at the moment.

Just my second-hand experience. Feel free to down-vote but please leave a comment afterwards. Not everyone and everything is sunshine and butterflies. The down-votes DO NOT invalidate anything. Or perhaps Bill's bots / fans are in play here. ;) God forbid someone voices negative experiences with a person. Only positives are allowed! I forgot...

> "The down-votes DO NOT invalidate anything. Or perhaps Bill's bots / fans are in play here"

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You half remember one blunt interaction that you conveniently can't find and you're dedicating your life to shitting on him and his project. How is that on-topic here?

If I find it and I post it, would that make it OK?

I did, I posted it, and someone already commented to each one of the reviews and comments. :|

I removed the link now.

Many people have had similar experiences with GB ... he's famous for it.

And here I thought this was a one time thing (someone said he may have had a bad day). :|

Do you have any specifics?

First, I want to be clear that Ginger Bill has put in the work and stands behind his convictions. But convictions he does have, and being strongly and forcefully opinionated has consequences. Here's a summary from Gemini ... which really isn't objectionable at all. If you want specific examples of him getting into arguments with people or being dismissive, you'll have to dig for them yourself.

"Ginger Bill" refers to Bill Hall, the creator of the Odin programming language, who is known for his outspoken and opinionated comments on programming and software development. His argumentative style can be seen in his blog posts and social media, particularly on X (formerly Twitter), where he often presents strong opinions on programming aesthetics, language design, and the open-source software movement.

Examples of his argumentative style

Software is not traditional property: In a blog post titled "Unstructured Thoughts on the Problems of OSS/FOSS," Hall argues that intellectual property, specifically software, is not "property" in the traditional sense because it is "trivially copyable". This is a provocative stance that challenges common views on intellectual property rights.

Criticism of open-source ideals: In the same article, he asserts that the open-source software (OSS/FOSS) dream is just a "dream that cannot live up to its 'ideals'". He argues that many of the perceived benefits of OSS are merely hypotheses and that the movement is based on "blind-faith".

Aesthetics in programming: Hall has made seemingly non-negotiable declarations about coding style. On X, he once posted, "Code indentation that is anything but 2, 3, 4, or 8 characters wide, is objectively a bad style from a pure aesthetics standpoint". While humorous, it exemplifies his tendency to make definitive statements on subjects that are often matters of convention.

Language semantics over syntax: He argues that the focus of language design should be on core semantics rather than "syntactic sugar". He believes that when the core semantics are good, the syntax will naturally follow and feel "joyful" to use.

Arguments against common practices: Hall is also known for taking firm positions against widely used programming practices, such as his blog post "Exceptions—And Why Odin Will Never Have Them". Overall, his argumentative nature stems from a deep-seated philosophical position on software design and engineering, which he shares to provoke discussion and advocate for the principles he believes are best for the craft.

I have read the post about exceptions: https://www.gingerbill.org/article/2018/09/05/exceptions-and....

I did not personally mind Odin's exceptions, to be honest. I prefer Odin's way, and Go's way, too.

> you'll have to dig for them yourself.

Yeah I was referring to such specifics, but I will take a look at Discord perhaps.

> "Code indentation that is anything but 2, 3, 4, or 8 characters wide, is objectively a bad style from a pure aesthetics standpoint"

Those are just opinions. I prefer 2 spaces, or tab with 2 column width. I tend stick to one style in my codebase, consistently. I do not like anything longer than 2, because I have a small screen and I think it is just simply redundant. I can follow 2 column width indentation just fine. This is just my opinion. If I use tabs, people can choose their own, it is up to them.

Dude, I find it utterly offensive that you and the other guy keep referring to all these interactions with Bill where he was a mean boy, and yet the closest to an actual quote or reference is some Gemini slop? If you're going to be that lazy, it would be easier to not post anything at all.

https://anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/haterdom/2025/08/2...

So you feel offended on behalf of someone else?

I found the comment(s):

[REDACTED]

> I am closing this PR because it would be quicker for me to write my own bindings than explain everything wrong with it and then hope they get fixed correctly.

The funny thing is that we are talking about a vendor library, one that does actually work (I tested it as I needed curl in Odin)! Seems like the major issues were purely stylistic.

BTW "Please try to keep the original naming conventions and DO NOT change it to Odin's core convention." and "Maybe remove the CURL prefix?" are contradictory.

It is "CURLOPT" in curl.h. "OPT" seems out of place. I am not even sure what I would have named it were I to follow his advice. You?

I'm offended by the Gemini slop!

So there is me, jibal, who else is a troll according to you? And who is the one trying to restrict knowledge just because of trolls? I saw the questions on GitHub. They make sense and I am sure people would like to hear the answer. I know I do. Perhaps the PR guy does, too, Lord knows. I think it is unfair to everyone just because of your allegations, and kind of confirms the things that have been said, but the scope extends. Unfortunately.

What in the world... jibal was the one who called _me_ a troll, I never called anyone a troll. Lord knows what is happening in this comment section at this point.

I lost the plot, too, both on here and on GitHub. The PR got locked, too. This was not my intention, I hope it will not affect anyone, I kind of feel bad for the PR guy now. sighs. He has no idea about this mess.

Is that really the whole reason for this grudge? He gave you a bunch of comments to work from! I was expecting a lot less from your description.

I don't find it too hard to figure out what he meant - he doesn't want to you change the case style of procedure calls, but he _does_ want you to remove redundant namespacing as in the CURL prefix.

Maybe you could have looked at some other vendored libraries to see how they handled things like constant naming and other formatting?

I posted the link and now the PR is getting filled with comments. Lord. This is why I did not want to look for and post the link to begin with!

Some guy did ask questions I would have asked, at least.

Back to the CURL prefix, what is wrong with it? It is how it is in curl.h and without it, it looks kind of meh. What would the "CURL" distinct type be without the CURL prefix? :P

I hope I did not make a mess just by posting the URL. I will remove it. I do not need more (supposedly trolls) in there and make more of a big fuss than I did on here.

> Back to the CURL prefix, what is wrong with it?

It prevents stuttering when using it `curl.CURL_*`.

> What would the "CURL" distinct type be without the CURL prefix?

`CURL` isn't a prefix there.

Take more time to think things through.

I did, thank you. Please explain why would anyone (end user of library) ever want "curl.CURL_GLOBAL_ALL", for example? If anything, it should be private. If you really want to go there, sure. I think it is YOU who should think things through. I get that you are filled with hatred, but come on man. Think. Why would anyone want to call "curl.CURL_GLOBAL_ALL" from a binding which is supposed to be used as a high-level curl library? If it is possible (I have no idea) to make it private, then it should be made private. It is not intended to be used by the users of the library, is it? The higher level functions are the ones supposed to be used by them, and they seem to be named correctly from a quick glance.

If you reply, do so without ad hominems and with some respect. Thank you.

Last question I'll answer, because you aren't doing any of this is good faith.

You mean `curl.GLOBAL_ALL`, and it's for https://curl.se/libcurl/c/curl_global_init.html

  // CURL_GLOBAL_ALL combines all initialization flags.
  CURL_GLOBAL_ALL: i64 = 3

It has nothing to do with "curl_global_init()". This - which is a high-level function intended to be called by the users of the library - has:

  init :: proc() -> (ok: bool) {
    return curl_global_init(CURL_GLOBAL_ALL) == 0
  }

As you can see, higher-level function calls low-level function. The higher-level function does not have "curl" as the prefix.

My question still stands and has not been answered.

> So you feel offended on behalf of someone else?

It's called trolling. He hasn't made a single productive comment.

I do not disagree.

I used the word "childish" to describe posting comments about someones personality without any references or examples, and here you are doing the same but adding Gemini to the mix... and I'm the troll? :)

Sorry to hear that! I haven’t had any such experience, quite the opposite.

But I’m also an old. If someone tells me my code is shit, 1) they are probably right, and 2) I don’t really care. I can probably look at their code and find flaws in it.

In the end, Odin is Bills project and he decides what goes into it, I’m fine with that.

From what I remember, it was supposed to land in vendor/ which is not the core standard library though. Additionally, it is one thing to say the code is shit, and another to say "too many things wrong, fuck off", all while the code did work properly! From what I recall the person said he will continue working on it anyway in his own git repository. I think he could have given pointers of these major flaws (I checked the code and I could not find anything either[1]), which could have not been too major if the code worked properly (there were test cases, it did actually work and there were no memory leaks either, FWIW).

> In the end, Odin is Bills project and he decides what goes into it, I’m fine with that.

Me too. I am just not going to contribute. No big deal.

> I haven’t had any such experience, quite the opposite.

Just to add some positive, too: I have had positive experiences with other contributors.

In any case, I follow the programming language's developers before I contribute, as you may have noticed.

[1] But then again, I do not know the language too well either. Those pointers would have helped me and many others.

> Me too. I am just not going to contribute. No big deal.

Makes sense! Plenty of other languages and projects out there.

My question to you, however, is this: what would have you done if he were to tell you that he can write your code way better (without any pointers) and that concludes the conversation? Would you not have expected at least SOMETHING as to what is wrong with it? Of course ultimately what he says and does is his own business, but I am asking you.

> Plenty of other languages and projects out there.

You are right. I do like Odin though, as a language, so it is a pity.

I don’t think he works for me. I am not paying him. To the contrary, if anything _I_ am in debt since I am using all this code that he put out there for free.

I guess there are a few things I could do in that situation. Move on to something else, try to figure out why he didn’t like it on my own, fork the language if it’s big enough and important enough to me.

But yeah, maybe he is busy? Maybe he thinks you are capable of working it out yourself?

Not to be too harsh about it, but yeah, that’s just the way it is sometimes. Maybe he was having a bad day, that happens to people.

> "what would have you done if he were to tell you that he can write your code way better (without any pointers) and that concludes the conversation?"

Depends on my mood; maybe go to the Odin Reddit, Discord or CodeReview StackExchange and say "GingerBill has rejected my PR for 'many problems' can I get some hints what, so I can make a better PR?" and then take my better PR back and update the original making it as clear as I can that I have made a good faith effort to improve it.

Or wait a couple of days (weeks?) and review my code with fresh eyes (and wait for the reviewer's mood to change).

Or reply "I'd be happy for you to rewrite it better, I just want the feature it doesn't have to be my code"

Or ask "Many problems, but how many of them are dealbreakers? Is there a route to a minimally viable commit which settles on a good enough interface, and the rest of the implementation can be improved later?"

Or ask "I'd hope you can write it better, you've been Odinning a lot longer than I have, can you point out some of the problems so I can learn more?"

Or if I was giving up on getting it committed, "You say you can write it better, so are you going to?"

> "Would you not have expected at least SOMETHING as to what is wrong with it?"

I have been on the internet long enough to be on both sides of "it's nice to be nice" and "where to start it's not even wrong" and to expect busy, capable, computer people to be time crunched and terse/blunt. There's a difference between "many problems" and "many problems, Get The Fuck Out". A difference between what Linus Torvalds and Erik Naggum used to do and a 3 second glance "too many problems to commit, rejected". Have you seen the accusations of what goes on behind closed doors in the C++ standards committee? Or Scheme world?[1] Does that put you off the languages or is that fine because it only happens to other people?

Progressive disclosure could say that if you cared and wanted to fix up the PR you would have engaged and asked, and if you didn't ask that suggests you weren't interested and that saved Bill's time writing a longer comment. I guess I expect that the Thing_I_Want is not something others care about and if I want to 'change the world' I will have to push some boulders up hill to get there, or push some people to drag their attention to my thing instead of whatever they are doing, and Thing_I_Want generally is not world changing enough to warrant that.

[1] I could go and find them and link them here, but I'm not going to because you might a) know, b) not care, and if I do then I'll get dragged into HN arguments about those accusations which isn't really relevant, but your grudge would be stronger if you had many documented examples showing a pattern of rude, cruel, damaging behaviour, rather than one example which you remember as being unfairly rude but can't find.

It is not my code, but since I want to know what is wrong with it, might as well ask around.

> it only happens to other people?

What I am talking about did happen to someone else, not me.

In any case, I will take your advice and ask around despite it not being my code, but I genuinely want to know what is wrong with it because I took a look at the code and I could not spot any issues with it, and I tested it, it works, so I wonder what really is wrong with the code despite its test cases passing, and the code seemingly being organized and seems to be Odin-style. He mentioned something about the person not knowing what "distinct" is, but he also said "many things are wrong, so many that he would rather just rewrite it himself" (which I doubt he has any intentions of doing). These issues surely cannot be such deal-breakers considering the code does run (without any memory leaks). I will ask around when I can be bothered.

> I genuinely want to know what is wrong with it ... when I can be bothered.

https://odin-lang.org/community/ - here's the forum, the IRC channel, the Discord invite, the subReddit link, or you could have commented in GitHub in the PR while you were looking at it.

All of these would be less effort than the comments you've made here in this thread, instead you've taken a second hand grudge and used it to give a small project a good kicking based on an exchange you haven't linked here for any reader here to form a judgement about, for reasons you don't understand and can't be bothered to find out, and then accused people of being bots and astroturfing. [I have followed two of Karl Zylinski's videos in Odin last winter; I have not used Odin in months. I have no stake in Odin].

How is that reasonable behaviour, a useful HN comment for HN readers, fair to GingerBill / Odin, or a step towards getting you the information you "genuinely want to know"?

It has been almost a year since I witnessed the incident. Ever since then I did not get back to it, but it stuck. As for reasonable, well that is debatable. Many people use the down-vote feature for shilling or the opposite of shilling. I do not find that reasonable, but it happens anyway. I have been down-voted to oblivion by bots before. Can I prove they were bots? Not really, but many people seemed to think so, too.

I am not going to continue on this conversation. Someone else have also said that he is famous for the thing I have brought up, so I am not alone with it, apparently.

Is it fair to him? No. Was he fair to the person submitting the PR? That is another no. Minimizing it by "probably had a bad day"? Is that reasonable? No, not to me. But then again, seems like it was not the only instance.

> All of these would be less effort than the comments you've made here in this thread

Fair enough. Perhaps I am just afraid of the reactions.

> But I’m also an old.

That explains why the C code is so neat. You don't see young'uns write such compact C code any more. Well done.

After years using higher-level languages, my C code has become verbose and clunky, when it doesn't necessarily have to be (and memory safety is no concern)

That's the nice thing about a little side project, I can just have fun and noodle away at it without worrying about safety or comments ;)

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