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There was a GitHub issue that I recently saw where there was some bike shedding about rustfmt changing the option name "bad-syntax" (or something like that) to

There was a GitHub issue that I recently saw where there was some bike shedding about rustfmt changing the option name "bad-syntax" (or something like that) to something less "judgemental". The reasoning being that you may have a particular coding style that differs from what rustfmt thinks is correct, and is thus "bad" (with bad being defined as giving bad input into a program). I'll try to hunt down the exact URL for the issue... While the example isn't within official documentation, it does demonstrate the lead Rust devs placing a lot of importance on social politics, and tip-toeing around such politically sensitive topics as coding style. Again, as the OP stated, nothing in how the Rust development community handles itself can be stated as bad. They go out of their way to be inclusive to everyone, and I think that's admirable. The way they go about it, at least from the example I found, is a bit tacky. There are more important things to bikeshed about than the name of a simple option, and in doing so it can come across as a bit tacky. But what do I know, perhaps I'm the real problem here!

Manishearth 9y ago
It was https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/41646 https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/41646 It was about changing the name of a lint from "bad-style" to "non-standard-style". I still don't understand what this change has anything to do with social politics. Nor was this really related to being inclusive or whatever, it was just about being nicer. Sure, there are more important things to do. But that's true for just about any bikeshed, that's pretty much a prerequisite for a discussion to be a bikeshed. > While the example isn't within official documentation, it does demonstrate the lead Rust devs placing a lot of importance on social politics, and tip-toeing around such politically sensitive topics as coding style. That's a major extrapolation. I'm not a lead rust dev (I do have commit/r+, I guess that can count). I drive-by filed an issue during a conference talk that I thought would be a small improvement that would be nicer to newbies and also just more accurate ("bad style" doesn't actually convey anything, why is it bad?). Various rust devs posted opinions and thoughts there. Nobody was tiptoeing or anything. You're grossly misrepresenting what happened there.
- david-cako 9y ago
  These types of issues/pulls are honestly intellectually demeaning. I know you're acting in good faith, but it really feels like MK-Ultra braindrain. Imagine approaching Linus Torvalds at a conference and telling him that you think people who choose to disobey the documented code style (which I, and most others, do not necessarily use outside of Linux kernel code) are just using "non-standard code style".
  - Manishearth 9y ago
    But this isn't about code style for a repo. If folks don't use the rust code style for contributing to the rust repo, sure, their pulls will be asked to fix it and not merged till they do. But as you yourself mention, folks use different code styles in different places. This is about being clearer about that. The better analogy here is GCC calling non-GNU style C code "bad" in all repos it is run on. Rust as a community is much more uniform wrt code style than C is, which is why the compiler even does things like warn about nonstandard style, but that's just it -- the style is non standard, not intrinsically bad in anyway (and "nonstandard" is better at explaining what's wrong than "bad" is).
  - Etzos 9y ago
    But it's true that there's nothing inherently "bad" about the code. It's just not conforming to the standard style. It seems pretty reasonable to want that to sound less menacing than "bad code", which would hint very strongly that one has something semantically incorrect.
- jcelerier 9y ago
  > Nor was this really related to being inclusive or whatever, it was just about being nicer. In what wicked world do you live where the word "bad" is considered as a "not-nice" word should not be said in order not to risk offending people ? What's next ? Replacing "error" by "potential incorrectness" ? This is 1984-like. No one should have to be afraid of words.
  - Manishearth 9y ago

Manishearth 9y ago

It was https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/41646 https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/41646 It was about changing the name of a lint from "bad-style" to "non-standard-style". I still don't understand what this change has anything to do with social politics. Nor was this really related to being inclusive or whatever, it was just about being nicer. Sure, there are more important things to do. But that's true for just about any bikeshed, that's pretty much a prerequisite for a discussion to be a bikeshed. > While the example isn't within official documentation, it does demonstrate the lead Rust devs placing a lot of importance on social politics, and tip-toeing around such politically sensitive topics as coding style. That's a major extrapolation. I'm not a lead rust dev (I do have commit/r+, I guess that can count). I drive-by filed an issue during a conference talk that I thought would be a small improvement that would be nicer to newbies and also just more accurate ("bad style" doesn't actually convey anything, why is it bad?). Various rust devs posted opinions and thoughts there. Nobody was tiptoeing or anything. You're grossly misrepresenting what happened there.

david-cako 9y ago
These types of issues/pulls are honestly intellectually demeaning. I know you're acting in good faith, but it really feels like MK-Ultra braindrain. Imagine approaching Linus Torvalds at a conference and telling him that you think people who choose to disobey the documented code style (which I, and most others, do not necessarily use outside of Linux kernel code) are just using "non-standard code style".
- Manishearth 9y ago
  But this isn't about code style for a repo. If folks don't use the rust code style for contributing to the rust repo, sure, their pulls will be asked to fix it and not merged till they do. But as you yourself mention, folks use different code styles in different places. This is about being clearer about that. The better analogy here is GCC calling non-GNU style C code "bad" in all repos it is run on. Rust as a community is much more uniform wrt code style than C is, which is why the compiler even does things like warn about nonstandard style, but that's just it -- the style is non standard, not intrinsically bad in anyway (and "nonstandard" is better at explaining what's wrong than "bad" is).
- Etzos 9y ago
  But it's true that there's nothing inherently "bad" about the code. It's just not conforming to the standard style. It seems pretty reasonable to want that to sound less menacing than "bad code", which would hint very strongly that one has something semantically incorrect.
jcelerier 9y ago
> Nor was this really related to being inclusive or whatever, it was just about being nicer. In what wicked world do you live where the word "bad" is considered as a "not-nice" word should not be said in order not to risk offending people ? What's next ? Replacing "error" by "potential incorrectness" ? This is 1984-like. No one should have to be afraid of words.
- Manishearth 9y ago