They seem to be specifically referring to the compiler error (as in, prevents compilation) for unused local variables. See discussion here: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/335#issuecomment-10011...

Yeesh, that's good to know. With the dev response basically doubling down on ideology and ignoring reasonable protest, that's definitely an ecosystem to not sink time into.

My thought about unused variable is the compiler should assume someones trying to debug something and not optimize them out.

You're right. I read too fast. Coming from Go, I'm used to errors on unused local variables, and like that Zig does the same.

I don't think they can carry information.