The CodeProject website went offline in March 2026

[Mahmoud Fayed]

Hello

If you’re not familiar with CodeProject, it was essentially a place where—whenever you searched Google for a programming question—you would often find a CodeProject article discussing the topic, usually with full source code attached.

Back in 2016, when version 1.0 of the Ring programming language was released, I wrote several CodeProject articles highlighting its key features. Those articles, along with tens of thousands of views, helped many developers discover Ring for the first time.

CodeProject was once a very popular website, but it went offline in March 2026 (just a few months ago). Here are some of the Ring articles preserved through the Wayback Machine.

The Ring Programming Language - CodeProject

Squares Puzzle using RingAllegro- CodeProject

Natural Language Programming in the Ring Programming Language- CodeProject

Using the Natural Language Programming Library (NLPL) in the Ring Programming Language

The Declarative Approach of the Ring Programming Language - CodeProject

Greetings,

Mahmoud

[Mansour Ayouni]

Hello Mahmoud,

These articles were my first encounter with the language when I was living in Canada...

Thank you for sharing them again.

Today I migrated my codebases from Github to Codeberg which I found to be more sovereign and open then Microsoft's Github.

All the best,

Mansour

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[Mahmoud Fayed]

Hello Mansour 

You are welcome :D

Greetings,

Mahmoud

[Mounir IDRASSI]

Hi Mahmoud,

Thank you sharing the info. The disappearance of CodeProject is a big loss because the quality content it hosted. 
I learned a lot from the articles there and from the discussion with their authors on the site.

I'm glad your Ring articles could be preserved. But honestly, I feel bad for the new generation which cannot experience rich programming interactions like the ones offered by CodeProject. Now, they are into AI so much that they forget that it is us humans that built all of this thanks to rich interactions. In 10 years our generation will be looked upon like dinosaurs!!

@Mansour: thank you for sharing Codeberg, I was not aware of it. I will give it a try. Github has become bloated.

Regards,

Mounir IDRASSI

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ring-lang/1a264862-3e95-465a-b741-b3736c56e6f2n%40googlegroups.com.

[The Future of Programming]

Hello Mounir

I agree with you, It was a wonderful resource of knowledge and encouraged many people to write very useful articles. 

Greetings, 

Mahmoud

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ring-lang/c5857528-7993-48db-b29d-9186e0190c5c%40idrix.fr.

[Mansour Ayouni]

Hello Mounir, Mahmoud,

Mounir raised a profound question about the future of programming in our role as hybrid generation that has been instructed in textual coding and the new gen for which coding became a matter of a dialog experience with an LLM.

It's clear that the industry is pushing towards illuminating coding and turning it to a past story. But the real world of software projects says the contrary : the real expertise of those who know traditional coding is always needed, especially in this era of bloated codebases generated by AIs.

If I had to give an advice to any serious young developer : master AI as it should be (not only prompting, but everything related to the harness engineering and agentic software architecture of LLM-based solutions), but keep your skills of writing textual code, scripts, and programs in structural programming languages like Ring, Python, etc, to keep your agentic solution hybrid, well governed, efficient, maintainable and cost-competitive compared to fully vibed AI apps.

The future of enterprise and critical domain AI software solutions is not what Anthropic or OpenAI CEOs would promise, it's what real world developers who are working with real enterprise customers (and I happen to be one of them) will say.

PS: Concerning Codeberg, I was observing it for a while, and took my decision when the Zig Foundation decided to move there (since I'm using Zig for an ongoing project of an agentic compiler called Zin that I needed for my AI-based projects).

All the best,

Mansour

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ring-lang/CAGZO62tm3o0uim6GyKEyXPg8Qb%2Bqyia0NwD-xf4%3Dkm9%3DukJuZQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Youssef Saeed]

Hello Mahmoud,

Yes, it was a very useful website!

Thanks for sharing the Wayback URLs for the past Ring articles on CodeProject!

@Mansour: Yes, I saw that Zig (and perhaps Ghostty in the future) also moved to Codeberg for the same reason. A few weeks ago, my GitHub account was banned for no reason, so I decided to move my projects there. However, after they unbanned it, I decided to create mirrors of my projects on Codeberg in the future.

Best regards,
Youssef

[The Future of Programming]

Hello Youssef 

You are welcome :D

Greetings, 

Mahmoud

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ring-lang/7e38dd90-f6d2-4b7e-9edb-0d3f822e215an%40googlegroups.com.

[Mansour Ayouni]

Hello Youssef,

I wanted to revisit our conversation about Codeberg and share my experience.

The service is good, but it isn't as reliable or consistently available as GitHub. I encounter the error shown in the attached snapshot roughly once every two weeks, while Github rarely presents sutch issue.

They have also decided to limit projects based on LLM-generated code in a somewhat unpredictable way. You can read their announcement here:
https://blog.codeberg.org/protecting-our-floss-commons-from-llms.html

My concern is that they seem to view LLMs as a threat from a cultural standpoint, which is a conservative perspective that I don't share.

I'm also not sure whether my Softanza repository would satisfy their requirements, since I use AI to generate 100% of the engine's code in Zig.

As you know, Softanza started several years before LLMs became mainstream, and most of the engine is simply a port of handwritten Ring code to Zig. So, in my opinion, it deserves to remain on their infrastructure. Still, I have some doubts.

Fortunately, I never stopped using GitHub, so I'll continue using both platforms in parallel.

All the best,

Mansour

[Mansour Ayouni]

Let me also add this interesting reflection that I share completely:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1v9smbc/codebergs_ban_on_llmassisted_code_is_the_most/

All the best,

Mansour

[Youssef Saeed]

Hello Mansour,

Thanks for sharing those links.

Banning or heavily restricting AI-generated code makes very little sense today. We don't live in the Stone Age anymore, and denying the value of AI is counterproductive. When used correctly, AI is simply a tool to handle routine code and boilerplate, allowing developers to focus their energy on solving complex problems and designing better architectures. A blanket anti-AI policy feels like a step backward for developer productivity.

You're also spot on about platform reliability. In my opinion, nothing can truly replace GitHub at this scale, though GitLab is also a very solid alternative.

Given these policy shifts and downtime issues, I've adjusted my approach as well. On top of keeping my primary repos on GitHub (and having a few mirrors on Codeberg), I am now mirroring my repositories to my own private Forgejo instance. That way, I maintain complete control over my code regardless of what policies third-party platforms decide to enforce.

Hope Softanza stays safe on Codeberg without any hassle, but keeping parallel backups on GitHub and elsewhere is definitely the smartest move.

Best regards,
Youssef

[Mansour Ayouni]

Thank you Youssef for sharing your insights and own strategy.

All the best,

Mansour

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ring-lang/55bc47c2-eda2-4ed4-8fca-9145a1d1831bn%40googlegroups.com.

[Bert Mariani]

Hello Mansour

"... since I use AI to generate 100% of the engine's code in Zig. 

As you know, Softanza started several years before LLMs became mainstream, 

and most of the engine is simply a port of handwritten Ring code to Zig ..."

I saw a video interview where the Zig Creator absolutely refuses to use any LLM code  in his Zig Code !!

I have to agree because once you start using LLM, you no longer know, or can follow ,or debug what the generated code is all about. I ported some Ring code to Python using LLM. When I read the Python code I could not follow it and was completely lost .

I am also surprised to hear you are porting Softanza to Zig.

Have you learned to program in Zig ?

Does it have to do with speed of performance ?

Does Zig support QT ?

=================================

Zig Creator Refuses to Use LLM

The Zig project, a prominent open-source programming language, has adopted a strict policy against the use of large language models (LLMs) in its contributions. This policy, which has sparked significant debate within the open-source community, emphasizes the importance of nurturing human contributors over automated solutions. The Zig maintainers argue that the true value of an open-source project lies in identifying and cultivating reliable, long-term contributors with growth potential. They believe that the code review process should be a deep communication aimed at helping newcomers understand technical standards and build mutual trust. However, once developers begin to rely on LLMs, this traditional mentorship model breaks down, making it difficult to determine whether the submitter genuinely understands the underlying concepts. The Zig project's decision to ban LLM contributions reflects a cautious measure for the long-term health of the community, preserving a space emphasizing logical understanding and trust endorsement for human developers in the AI er

=================================

Regards

Bert Mariani

[Mansour Ayouni]

Hello Bert,

Zig's creator does not use AI to write Zig itself, and I think this is a good thing.

But some respected developers, like Mitchell Hashimoto (the creator of HashiCorp), are writing their Zig-based open source projects mostly with LLMs. His TUI application, Ghostty, is a well-known example.

When your code is written mostly by AI, governing that code becomes a whole new discipline that every modern programmer has to master. Prompt engineering, harness engineering, loop engineering, and, more recently, graph engineering, are all becoming essential.

Personally, I have my own way of approaching this, and I've just finished a book about it that I will publish openly (see the cover). The central thesis is that programming is no longer about writing lines of code. Rather, it is about continuously refining an existing codebase—mainly through AI—while leaving the human responsible for the design and the governance of that change.

Of course, I first learned the basics of Zig itself. I chose it because it is both learnable and powerful. It addresses many of the requirements my customers have that Ring cannot satisfy on its own. The Zig + Ring pair (which I call Zing) combines the elegance of Ring with the power of Zig in a single development environment. It gives me everything I need to bring my ideas to life and implement all the features I envisioned for Softanza, including advanced machine learning and AI.

One of my motivations for adopting Zig is to eliminate dependencies on external libraries—especially Qt—while achieving bare-metal, low-level performance. Today, Softanza applications are deployed as a single binary on every platform, with no external dependencies at all.

All the best,

Mansour

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ring-lang/db3d008b-4838-40fc-91c0-e3ac060558ddn%40googlegroups.com.

[Bert Mariani]

Hello Mansour 

Nice cover picture for the book !

RE:  "... Softanza applications are deployed as a single binary on every platform, with no external dependencies at all. ..."

Does that mean it runs a a single  .exe program  on any operating system ?

How did you manage to get rid of all the QT portions ?

I guess the Ring Interpreter is not required to run it.

My last question ... are you able to follow and debug the Zig code ?

How big is the Zig code.

How does Zio support a GUI ... are there built in libraries ?

Regards

Bert Mariani

[Mansour Ayouni]

Hello Bert,

Does that mean it runs a a single  .exe program  on any operating system ?

Yes, as long as you write your program in Softanza and pure Ring (no external extensions).

How did you manage to get rid of all the QT portions ?

I just don't use it. Now, stzString and all Unicode functions, as well as Regex, and every thing I used Qt for, has been written in Zig as part of the Softanza Engine.

I guess the Ring Interpreter is not required to run it.

Yes. The Ring part of your rogram is compiled along with the Softanza Engine on one binary that runs everywhere without requiring Ring.

Are you able to follow and debug the Zig code ?

 Yes of course ! Zig has all the tools you expect from a professional language including debug.

How big is the Zig code ?

I did not port all the Ring codebase, just the foundational classes that are required to be performant and language-independant (since Softanza Engine can be used from any language not only Ring).

How does Zio support a GUI ?

 Zig is primarily duited for backend system programming. There is no official Gui library yet, but the community is developing many of them. For Softanza, I have a simpler vision for using HTML/CSS as a GUI paradigm and compiling them into native containers on each platform.

Are there built in libraries ?

Like Ring, Zig is a niche languge. It comes with a reasonable set of libraries and the community is evolving. but in case you need it, you can use any C or C++ library with it. In Softanza Engine, I vendored small libraries like ut8proc for Unicode and pcre2 for Regex. But they are built inside the Engine and they are not required to be loaded with your Softanza program.

Best,

Mansour