This was exactly my take on it.

I'd recently been reading a bit more about zig, and even tried out using it as an easy way to compile c++ with llvm without having to fuss with system packages -- transitioning from c/c++ to zig was a major selling point

It just seems really abrupt, certainly unexpected. I'm not saying it's the right/wrong thing for the project -- just really really out of left field from my point of view