Zigbook
Zigbook by zigbookby zigbook
Shares rank 21 of 115 programming books by recommenders
Free open-source Zig introduction that some find on point. Critics say it is AI-generated, has errors and ignores attribution.
Free open-source Zig introduction that some find on point. Critics say it is AI-generated, has errors and ignores attribution.
48 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 41
- approval share
- 15%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Doing the job for learning Zig
“Some text in the book itself is odd, but I'll be a guinea pig and try to learn zig from this book”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Open-source Zig book” “It is doing the job and mostly stays on point, avoids the informative asides and humor”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Zig Book – An open, technical and introductory book for Zig”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Appears AI-generated, with LLM-style errors
“These contain errors typically made by LLMs, such as suggesting to use features that doesn't exist”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Open-source Zig book” “The tool itself claims "Zero AI" ( https://www.zigbook.net/ ) yet is very obviously A-Lot-AI.”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Zigbook Is Plagiarizing the Zigtools Playground” “Glad this popped up on HN so I can avoid the AI hallucinations steering me off track.”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Open-source Zig book” - Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Zigbook Is Plagiarizing the Zigtools Playground”
- Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Open-source Zig book”
- Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Zigbook Is Plagiarizing the Zigtools Playground”
Copied code without attribution, license issues
“Them stealing code, claiming it as their own, refusing to give attribution and editing third-party comments”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service” “Zigbook is the one who clearly looks bad. The website is no longer up, even, now showing a DMCA notice.”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service” “Not honoring the attribution requirement in the MIT license is a copyright infringement”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Zigbook Is Plagiarizing the Zigtools Playground” Deceptive authorship, sockpuppets, edited comments
“sadly people like the prompter of this book will lie and pretend to have written things themselves that they did not”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Open-source Zig book” “editing user comments to make it look like they're saying something they're not isn't okay”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Zigbook Is Plagiarizing the Zigtools Playground” “'zigbook' also seems to be using other accounts as sock puppets”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Open-source Zig book” Repetitive examples and inaccurate technical advice
“The repetitiveness of the shell commands (and using zig build-exe instead of zig run when the samples consist of short snippets)”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Open-source Zig book” “These contain errors typically made by LLMs, such as suggesting to use features that doesn't exist”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Open-source Zig book”
Other programming books people recommend
The four most recommended other programming books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting Interpretersby Robert Nystrom | 60 | 4 | 94% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Clean Codeby Robert C. Martin | 31 | 87 | 26% | 9 | — | — |
| The Pragmatic Programmerby Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas | 28 | 1 | 97% | 7 | — | Approved |
| How to Design Programsby Matthias Felleisen and Robert Bruce Findler and Matthew Flatt and Shriram Krishnamurthi | 18 | 2 | 90% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Zigbookby zigbookThis page | 7 | 41 | 15% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 55 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Them stealing code, claiming it as their own, refusing to give attribution and editing third-party comments”
“Zigbook is the one who clearly looks bad. The website is no longer up, even, now showing a DMCA notice.”
“They don't care about their product (code) quality as long as it sells.”
“found Zigbook to be a very poor resource for learning”
“copyright-infringing AI slop project in any language”
“I had no clue what was going on and couldn't follow it”
“Just bizarre. Like watching a midlife crisis through GitHub issues.”
“It is doing the job and mostly stays on point, avoids the informative asides and humor”
“all zigbook had to do was acknowledging original copyright.”
“The tool itself claims "Zero AI" yet is very obviously A-Lot-AI.”
“The tool itself claims "Zero AI" ( https://www.zigbook.net/ ) yet is very obviously A-Lot-AI.”
“editing user comments to make it look like they're saying something they're not isn't okay”
“Not honoring the attribution requirement in the MIT license is a copyright infringement”
“Would this be grounds to report zigbook to GitHub maybe? This is wild”
“low-effort slop with no effort put into it”
“He's just writing an AI slop book about Zig.”
“Zigbook is not honoring the attribution requirement.”
“considering that there is distaste for AI in every part of this llm generated book”
“'zigbook' also seems to be using other accounts as sock puppets”
“not appropriate for the mission of being a core zig learning resource”
“Some text in the book itself is odd, but I'll be a guinea pig and try to learn zig from this book”
“it was very obviously AI generated”
“before realizing it largely was AI generated”
“Glad this popped up on HN so I can avoid the AI hallucinations steering me off track.”
“Hard to trust the contents of a book that starts with a lie.”
“the headline ... should discredit it immediately”
“The introduction itself ticks every single flag of AI generated slop.”
“There are too many things off about the origin and author to not be suspicious of it.”
“These contain errors typically made by LLMs, such as suggesting to use features that doesn't exist”
“Even better if they shared their prompts.”
“The repetitiveness of the shell commands (and using zig build-exe instead of zig run when the samples consist of short snippets)”
“sadly people like the prompter of this book will lie and pretend to have written things themselves that they did not”
“so right of the bat the "AI-free" label is conning people.”
“I think it's time to have a badge for non LLM content, and avoid the rest.”
“the content seems so blatantly AI-generated”
“I think it's just a pompous style of writing.”
“Pangram flags the introduction as totally AI-written”
“they are explained correctly in a logical/thoughtful way”
“Also a bit annoying that there is no PDF version that I could download as the website is pretty slow.”
“I'm 99% sure this is written by an LLM.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.