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I'm a big fan of Python lately but neither I nor Python community at large goes "you fucking scrub, use Python, fuck you, wtf are you doing, stop making broken

by FRex 9y ago

I'm a big fan of Python lately but neither I nor Python community at large goes "you fucking scrub, use Python, fuck you, wtf are you doing, stop making broken progs for ppl and wasting your time, omg, obsolete shit you use" and instead highlight upsides of it like readability, plentiful modules, widespread use of it, etc. Meanwhile Rust community seems full of negative advertising in the tone of "fuck C, fuck C++, Rust is safer and better, always, for everything". I see this every time Rust is brought up, without exception. Like WTF? I can understand people disliking C, C++, Lua, whatever, but not going batshit insane over them and saying you need stars to align to write a C program that isn't broken and that to write an unbroken C++ program is impossible...

curun1r 9y ago
I think what you're seeing is less the Rust community and more the community of computer users that have been forced to use C/C++ software for decades now. Up until Rust, there were many easy reasons why developers could justify their choice to use C/C++. And so users had to live with the frustrations of running code written in those languages because there really were few well-known alternatives. Now Rust comes along with its safety claims (which are mostly true) and suddenly these computer users have what they believe is a legitimate complaint. They now see the frustrations with running C/C++ software as no longer facts of life but, instead, development externalities that users are forced to pay based on the decisions of the developers. And so you have a bunch of people who've likely never written much in either C/C++ or Rust who are trumpeting Rust because they're sick of dealing with CVEs, segfaults and all the other 1970s baggage that the C-cosystem imposes. And it doesn't help that C/C++ developers tend to react defensively and take the advocacy as an impugnment of their developer honor. Saying "It's only inept C/C++ developers that write code with UB or memory safety issues. Disciplined developers can write safe C code!" just infuriates people even more since the weight of evidence suggests that any non-trivial C program will eventually have a bug or vulnerability of this kind. Humans make mistakes. That's an immutable fact that we need to take into account when relying on humans to do anything. Programming is a thing that is part of that anything. To err is human, to catch as many of those mistakes as possible is the compiler's job. But I think both the Rust community and the Rust-resistant community should be wary of those trumpeting Rust who are part of neither of those groups. There are many good reasons to use Rust and some good reasons not to. Often times a hybrid Rust/C solution would be the best. We should be careful to try to take ego out of the decision making process as much as possible. And we should remember that when users are asking for Rust, what they're really asking for is an end to the pain that they've had to deal with. If it can be accomplished in some other way, then that works too.

by FRex 9y ago

curun1r 9y ago

I think what you're seeing is less the Rust community and more the community of computer users that have been forced to use C/C++ software for decades now. Up until Rust, there were many easy reasons why developers could justify their choice to use C/C++. And so users had to live with the frustrations of running code written in those languages because there really were few well-known alternatives. Now Rust comes along with its safety claims (which are mostly true) and suddenly these computer users have what they believe is a legitimate complaint. They now see the frustrations with running C/C++ software as no longer facts of life but, instead, development externalities that users are forced to pay based on the decisions of the developers. And so you have a bunch of people who've likely never written much in either C/C++ or Rust who are trumpeting Rust because they're sick of dealing with CVEs, segfaults and all the other 1970s baggage that the C-cosystem imposes. And it doesn't help that C/C++ developers tend to react defensively and take the advocacy as an impugnment of their developer honor. Saying "It's only inept C/C++ developers that write code with UB or memory safety issues. Disciplined developers can write safe C code!" just infuriates people even more since the weight of evidence suggests that any non-trivial C program will eventually have a bug or vulnerability of this kind. Humans make mistakes. That's an immutable fact that we need to take into account when relying on humans to do anything. Programming is a thing that is part of that anything. To err is human, to catch as many of those mistakes as possible is the compiler's job. But I think both the Rust community and the Rust-resistant community should be wary of those trumpeting Rust who are part of neither of those groups. There are many good reasons to use Rust and some good reasons not to. Often times a hybrid Rust/C solution would be the best. We should be careful to try to take ego out of the decision making process as much as possible. And we should remember that when users are asking for Rust, what they're really asking for is an end to the pain that they've had to deal with. If it can be accomplished in some other way, then that works too.