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I'm disappointed that "No" and "I stopped using Rust" were merged into one answer for the "Do you use Rust?" question. Knowing the reasons people have never use

by kej 10y ago

I'm disappointed that "No" and "I stopped using Rust" were merged into one answer for the "Do you use Rust?" question. Knowing the reasons people have never used Rust compared to the reasons people have used Rust but moved away would have been a really interesting result.

steveklabnik 10y ago
You live and learn. I think we're all kicking ourselves over it; so obvious in hindsight! It's certainly the plan for next year.
- erickt 10y ago
  Rust Community Team here. Yeah that was a mistake. We were trying to cut out redundant questions, but it would have been so easy just to split this into three answers. We might be able to split this out based on secondary information, but we didn't finish that analysis in time for this post. Maybe we can get it into a future post if we trust our result.
Animats 10y ago
That's a good point. Since this is apparently a self-selected sample of people interested in Rust, a 1/3 "No" report is a problem. If the survey was from a random sample of all programmers, the usage level would be much lower.
- pcwalton 10y ago
  > Since this is apparently a self-selected sample of people interested in Rust, a 1/3 "No" report is a problem. How do you know what usage level is a "problem" without any point of comparison? I'm interested in JavaScript, for example, but I don't use it more often than a handful of times per year, if that. I wouldn't be surprised if a third of people answering a JS survey were in the same boat. And I'm not worried about the future of JS. > If the survey was from a random sample of all programmers, the usage level would be much lower. Is there any language which more than a small minority of all programmers in the world use?
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    "I'm interested in JavaScript, for example, but I don't use it more often than a handful of times per year, if that. I wouldn't be surprised if a third of people answering a JS survey were in the same boat. And I'm not worried about the future of JS." This may or may not counter the point. Your language specifically... per various comments I've read here (esp vs Go language)... targets programmers demanding high-efficiency or low-level usage that are basically using C, C++, Objective-C, Java, or C#. Vast majority are with most in efficiency camp using first two. So, if data self-selected for those, then a third saying No could be a serious failure if the goal was replacing those with significant uptake. At the least, it would be meaningful metric on if Rust was succeeding. Unfortunately, we need the people responding to represent those groups to be sure. I suggest that whoever has the responses filter out everything but those languages above. Then look at the No's or any problems reported. Then, filter again to get just C, C++, and Objective-C as they're the low-level ones. Then look at the negative responses again. That could get information on uptake in most important targets plus generate ideas for action to take for key demographic.
    - pcwalton 10y ago
      First of all, it's not "my language". I haven't even worked on the compiler for over a year. Second, think about C++. A year after it came out, were 90% (say) of C users who had heard of C++ using it? I highly doubt it. There simply isn't enough data to compare to. So you can look at that number and support any narrative you want by making up what you think a "healthy" number "should" be.
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        Good rebuttal. Especially with the C++ vs C example. :)
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > a 1/3 "No" report is a problem Or it could just reflect strong interest for a relatively young language. I'd love to write some Rust in my day job, but it's rough getting support for using new toolchains and package managers (i.e., cargo). Relatively modest changes (C++11, CMake) are ambitious. Anyway, if a suitable greenfield project or even a job offer surfaced, I'd be extremely interested.
- kibwen 10y ago
  Note that we deliberately posted the survey to places where it would be visible to more than the typical Rust community, and made it explicitly clear that we were looking for feedback even from people who didn't currently use the language (after all, we regularly get plenty of feedback from people who are actively using the language, via our discussion forums and RFCs). Perhaps the single biggest goal of this survey was to determine what is keeping people from being able to use the language, and that means reaching out to this crowd. The line from the OP, "We’re happy to report that more than a third of the responses were from people not using Rust", isn't being facetious!
  - dom96 10y ago
    If you don't mind me asking, which places did you post the survey to?
    - steveklabnik 10y ago
      It was promoted via HN (though it didn't really get many upvotes), Reddit, our forums, and our Twitter account.
    - kibwen 10y ago
      In addition to the typical Rust places (users.rlo, /r/rust) and the typical generalist programming communities (proggit, HN) we also encouraged speakers to share the link to the survey at the end of any talks they gave (which gives us a good mix of both current users and non-users (especially if the talk is part of a generalist meetup or non-Rust-specific event)). We also included the survey in any official blog posts during this period (many of which, like http://blog.rust-lang.org/2016/05/16/rust-at-one-year.html http://blog.rust-lang.org/2016/05/16/rust-at-one-year.html , we expect to be general enough to appeal to more than just our usual users). And we also urged our community members to pass the link on to their friend groups, as well as any other communities that they may be a part of.
- Manishearth 10y ago
  This was not self selected; we explicitly publicized the survey in non Rusty venues to get outside opinions.
merb 10y ago
Actually I filled the survey with No. But actually it was more like "It's too early for a high level language, since the tooling is still lacking, but I tried it"

by kej 10y ago

steveklabnik 10y ago

You live and learn. I think we're all kicking ourselves over it; so obvious in hindsight! It's certainly the plan for next year.

erickt 10y ago
Rust Community Team here. Yeah that was a mistake. We were trying to cut out redundant questions, but it would have been so easy just to split this into three answers. We might be able to split this out based on secondary information, but we didn't finish that analysis in time for this post. Maybe we can get it into a future post if we trust our result.

Animats 10y ago

That's a good point. Since this is apparently a self-selected sample of people interested in Rust, a 1/3 "No" report is a problem. If the survey was from a random sample of all programmers, the usage level would be much lower.

pcwalton 10y ago
> Since this is apparently a self-selected sample of people interested in Rust, a 1/3 "No" report is a problem. How do you know what usage level is a "problem" without any point of comparison? I'm interested in JavaScript, for example, but I don't use it more often than a handful of times per year, if that. I wouldn't be surprised if a third of people answering a JS survey were in the same boat. And I'm not worried about the future of JS. > If the survey was from a random sample of all programmers, the usage level would be much lower. Is there any language which more than a small minority of all programmers in the world use?
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  "I'm interested in JavaScript, for example, but I don't use it more often than a handful of times per year, if that. I wouldn't be surprised if a third of people answering a JS survey were in the same boat. And I'm not worried about the future of JS." This may or may not counter the point. Your language specifically... per various comments I've read here (esp vs Go language)... targets programmers demanding high-efficiency or low-level usage that are basically using C, C++, Objective-C, Java, or C#. Vast majority are with most in efficiency camp using first two. So, if data self-selected for those, then a third saying No could be a serious failure if the goal was replacing those with significant uptake. At the least, it would be meaningful metric on if Rust was succeeding. Unfortunately, we need the people responding to represent those groups to be sure. I suggest that whoever has the responses filter out everything but those languages above. Then look at the No's or any problems reported. Then, filter again to get just C, C++, and Objective-C as they're the low-level ones. Then look at the negative responses again. That could get information on uptake in most important targets plus generate ideas for action to take for key demographic.
  - pcwalton 10y ago
    First of all, it's not "my language". I haven't even worked on the compiler for over a year. Second, think about C++. A year after it came out, were 90% (say) of C users who had heard of C++ using it? I highly doubt it. There simply isn't enough data to compare to. So you can look at that number and support any narrative you want by making up what you think a "healthy" number "should" be.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      Good rebuttal. Especially with the C++ vs C example. :)
humanrebar 10y ago
> a 1/3 "No" report is a problem Or it could just reflect strong interest for a relatively young language. I'd love to write some Rust in my day job, but it's rough getting support for using new toolchains and package managers (i.e., cargo). Relatively modest changes (C++11, CMake) are ambitious. Anyway, if a suitable greenfield project or even a job offer surfaced, I'd be extremely interested.
kibwen 10y ago
Note that we deliberately posted the survey to places where it would be visible to more than the typical Rust community, and made it explicitly clear that we were looking for feedback even from people who didn't currently use the language (after all, we regularly get plenty of feedback from people who are actively using the language, via our discussion forums and RFCs). Perhaps the single biggest goal of this survey was to determine what is keeping people from being able to use the language, and that means reaching out to this crowd. The line from the OP, "We’re happy to report that more than a third of the responses were from people not using Rust", isn't being facetious!
- dom96 10y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, which places did you post the survey to?
  - steveklabnik 10y ago
    It was promoted via HN (though it didn't really get many upvotes), Reddit, our forums, and our Twitter account.
  - kibwen 10y ago
    In addition to the typical Rust places (users.rlo, /r/rust) and the typical generalist programming communities (proggit, HN) we also encouraged speakers to share the link to the survey at the end of any talks they gave (which gives us a good mix of both current users and non-users (especially if the talk is part of a generalist meetup or non-Rust-specific event)). We also included the survey in any official blog posts during this period (many of which, like http://blog.rust-lang.org/2016/05/16/rust-at-one-year.html http://blog.rust-lang.org/2016/05/16/rust-at-one-year.html , we expect to be general enough to appeal to more than just our usual users). And we also urged our community members to pass the link on to their friend groups, as well as any other communities that they may be a part of.
Manishearth 10y ago
This was not self selected; we explicitly publicized the survey in non Rusty venues to get outside opinions.

merb 10y ago

Actually I filled the survey with No. But actually it was more like "It's too early for a high level language, since the tooling is still lacking, but I tried it"