Andrew Kelley

President and Lead Developer of Zig Software Foundation.

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Blog Posts

2026 Jul 31 - Don't Take the Black Pill (Text Adaptation)
2026 Jul 09 - My Thoughts on the Bun Rust Rewrite
2025 Oct 29 - Zig's New Async I/O (Text Version)
2025 Aug 29 - An Open Letter to Everyone I've Butted Heads With
2025 Jul 24 - Renting is for Suckers
2025 Jul 14 - OpenZFS Bug Ported to Zig
2024 May 30 - Zig's New CLI Progress Bar Explained
2024 Mar 22 - Redis Renamed to Redict
2024 Feb 04 - Why We Can't Have Nice Software
2023 Oct 17 - The Techno-Optimist Manifesto
2023 Aug 23 - So Long, Twitter and Reddit
2020 Mar 24 - `zig cc`: a Powerful Drop-In Replacement for GCC/Clang
2019 Jun 24 - Why I'm donating $150/month (10% of my income) to the musl libc project
2018 Dec 04 - Using Zig to Provide Stack Traces on Kernel Panic for a Bare Bones Operating System
2018 Sep 15 - String Matching based on Compile Time Perfect Hashing in Zig
2018 Jun 07 - I Quit My Cushy Job at OkCupid to Live on Donations to Zig
2018 Feb 11 - Zig: January 2018 in Review
2018 Jan 24 - Unsafe Zig is Safer Than Unsafe Rust
2018 Jan 03 - Zig: December 2017 in Review
2017 Feb 17 - A Better Way to Implement Bit Fields
2017 Feb 14 - Zig: Already More Knowable Than C
2017 Jan 30 - Zig Programming Language Blurs the Line Between Compile-Time and Run-Time
2017 Jan 17 - Troubleshooting a Zig Regression with apitrace
2016 Feb 08 - Introduction to the Zig Programming Language
2014 Jun 20 - Turn Your Raspberry Pi into a Music Player Server
2014 Jun 12 - Laptop Review - Bonobo Extreme
2014 Apr 22 - My Quest to Build the Ultimate Music Player
2013 Sep 06 - Do Not Use bodyParser with Express.js
2013 Aug 17 - JavaScript Callbacks are Pretty Okay
2013 Aug 14 - I am not a "JavaScript Developer".
2013 Jul 30 - 7dRTS Game Reviews
2013 Jul 23 - Pillagers! 7dRTS Game Development Journal
2013 Jul 17 - Private Methods in JavaScript
2013 Jul 10 - Spot the Fail
2013 Jun 07 - Statically Recompiling NES Games into Native Executables with LLVM and Go
2013 Jan 30 - Rapid Development Email Templates with Node.js
2011 Aug 07 - How to be Successful at PyWeek
2011 Aug 04 - John Muir Trail from the Perspective of Andrew Kelley
2011 Apr 02 - Lemming - PyWeek #12 Game Development Journal

Projects

Zig - a general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal and reusable software.
Groove Basin - music player server with a web-based user interface.

Talks

2018-03-20 - Software Should Be Perfect
2019-05-09 - Zig: a programming language for maintaining robust, reusable software
2021-11-23 - A Practical Guide to Applying Data-Oriented Design Popular!
2022-10-03 - Introduction to Zig
2022-10-17 - Stay Together For The Kids (Why System Package Managers and Language Package Managers Struggle to Cooperate)
2023-04-07 - Making Systems Programming Accessible
2023-08-26 - Case Study: Zig Software Foundation
2023-09-14 - How to Build Software From Source
2024-08-12 - A Systems-Minded Approach to Creating a Music Player Application
2024-11-23 - In Defense of the Free Software Movement
2025-02-28 - Programming Without Pointers Short!
2025-08-11 - Don't Forget To Flush
2026-07-16 - Don't Take The Black Pill

Music (FL Studio Era)

Back in my university days, I started learning how to make music with FL Studio, and made my first foray into Free Software by contributing to LMMS. I am thankful to the OC Remix and ThaSauce communities for mentorship. Here is a small selection of songs that I think turned out pretty fun:

Being Alone
Listen to My Synthesizer
Sand
Tribute to Young Stroke AKA Young Muscle
I'm Computer
Gerudo
Lightning Storm

Music (Deluge Era)

After a 15 year hiatus, I purchased a Synthstrom Deluge and a red guitar, and rekindled my hobby. Been having a blast with this thing!

Practice
dnb2
Propaganda
Alone

Game Jams

Face the Music

Rock your way out of being trampled by a mob of screaming fans. You can play in your browser or check out the source.

Purgatory

Escape from the circles of hell. 7 hour game jam. You can play in your browser or check out the source.

Pillagers!

Real Time Strategy game with space physics, made for 7dRTS. You can play in your browser, check out the source, or read the game development journal.

Dr. Chemical's Lab

arcade/simulation/multiplayer, made for PyWeek #14. You can play in your browser or check out the source.

Lemming

Side-scrolling platformer, made for PyWeek #12. You can play in your browser, check out the source, or read the game development journal.

Planetarius

Networked multiplayer arcade shooter, made for Ludum Dare 30. You can check out the source.