> and yet there’s questions on the semi-official forum on how to read from files properly.

That is currently in the process of changing. Of course people are discussing things that are changing.

> no, the docs really don’t cut it.

Yes they do :) - source: have written multiple small projects in Zig.

I encourage you to actually read the page I linked from top to bottom if you are interested in learning Zig. I did it because mitchellh mentioned in an interview that it's what he did. It's easy to follow, useful, and not an overwhelming amount of information.