10 ms·

Five years with Rust

220 points by doppp 9y ago

hckr1292 9y ago
Wait, are you leaving Mozilla or your day-to-day responsibilities with Rust? I'm confused about the message here. Either way, your help in providing documentation and mentorship to me personally on IRC and thousands of other aspiring rust devs is something I'm profoundly grateful for. Thank you, Steve!!
- staticassertion 9y ago
  Nothing in the article seems to indicate him leaving Mozilla or rust. It ends with "here's to 5 more years".
Danihan 9y ago
No offense, but I'm not sure I understand the point of this post or why it's relevant / upvoted.
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  My personal stuff tends to end up here, as I've been a part of Hacker News for quite a while now. My account is almost nine years old! That said, I understand this sentiment, and it's why I didn't submit it myself. I think it's fine, as people do seem to be interested, but can also understand the opposite view.
  - stevegopnik 9y ago
    How about you go gargle your dog's balls, you sodden poofter.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    I can't help but laugh at the commenter below who made a new account just to troll you. Part and parcel of being a prominent part of a community, I guess.
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
      They come in waves. dang and crew are generally pretty responsive in taking care of it. 4chan/8chan on the other hand... It's just a part of my life at this point.
    - stevegopnik 9y ago
      That's because you love the taste of gopnik balls, you twat.
- purple-again 9y ago
  Being people ourselves many of us are as fascinated by the Recognized People associated with the things we’re interested in as we are with the thing itself. It’s an interesting facet of the human experience that lets me live Steve’s life for a moment through my own lens of life experiences.
- stevegopnik 9y ago
  That's because Hackernews is filled with SJW manginas. That's why.
Buttons840 9y ago
I don't know Rust very well, but hope to learn it better soon. steveklabnik is the only person from the Rust team I recognize by name. He's always leaving detailed and positive replies in Rust related forums across the Internet. Thanks for all your hard work Steve.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  I'm also always positively surprised by the people in the #rust-beginners IRC channel. No matter how dumb my question is, someone will always helpfully point me to the relevant documentation. They're so helpful that sometimes I worry that I'm inconveniencing them with my incessant questions.
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    It’s no inconvenience! That’s why we’re there :)
    - gaurangagg 9y ago
      Wow! I will join the IRC channel right away. I always wanted to learn and explore Rust.
saghm 9y ago
Although I can't speak for the rest of the software industry, Steve's hard work and talent have certainly made a huge impact on the Rust language and community. If you read this, thanks for everything you do to make Rust great!
doomrobo 9y ago
The Rust project would be very different without Steve's efforts. One of the greatest things about the project is the coherence, clarity, rigor, and ease-of-use of the documentation system. The Rust Book has also been a massive aid in attracting new users. I only hope that Steve continues to lend his talent to the project in the future.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Every great language needs a Steve. If you don't read anything else programming related next year, read the Rust book. Even if you don't need Rust, there's a lot you can learn from it. https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/ https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/
  - ksec 9y ago
    While it is great that Rust has Steve, sadly this is at the cost of Ruby Rails. I wonder if he will ever comes back to the Ruby communities.
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
      I still really love Ruby! I come to conferences sometimes. There's just not enough hours in the day.
  - stevegopnik 9y ago
    Yes, if you are hellbent on destroying the credibility of the language.
madez 9y ago
> Five years in, I think my journey has been successful so far. I’m proud of how far Rust has come. That said, there’s a lot more work to do. I’m still committed as ever to getting that work done, (...) It's good to hear that people behind Rust intent to continue working on Rust. One thing I'm missing, however, is what exactly is considered important to be solved. There are many things how Rust could be made more viable or attractive for a variety of scenarios. For example, I don't consider it important to be able to compile Rust to JavaScript, because I don't think JavaScript is a good thing. On the other hand, downstream packaging of Rust and libraries is important. There are scenarios where rustup and cargo are not acceptable. Is this on the radar? Another issue is target/host support and independent implementations. Rusts only Tier 1 platforms are of the backdoored x86-family. Is this not considered an issue to be solved to make the world a better place? I don't intent to blame, shame or finger-point anybody, but just point out critical remarks that come to mind.
- vvanders 9y ago
  Most of that is covered pretty well in "Rust in 2017"[1] which somehow didn't make it to the front page. Splitting out cargo and build systems is something that is explicitly called out and I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of work ongoing to get other Tier 1 targets online. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15980359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15980359
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  No blame/shame taken! Everyone has their own opinions as to the work to be done. We now have a yearly roadmap process for each year, and are soon going to be opening that up to community discussion. Feedback from everyone that cares about Rust is extremely important! That's also part of why I didn't elaborate; my thoughts on that are a whole big post unto itself. That said, my personal focus is on documentation, ease of use, and growth, so those are some broad areas in which I'd like to push hard on next year. The funny thing about goals is that they often tie into other goals, for example, I believe that documentation is a huge part of ease of use. Same with how other people's goals might fit into my goals; language design is also a big part of ease of use, for example. What I will say is that I'm currently prototyping a complete re-think of how Rust does documentation; I'm excited to share it but it's not ready yet. To briefly comment on some of the points you've raised: > I don't consider it important to be able to compile Rust to JavaScript We share this opinion, but compiling to WebAssembly is a whole different ballgame. > There are scenarios where rustup and cargo are not acceptable. Is this on the radar? It's hard to say without knowing more details of what exactly you mean; distros are already packaging Rust and libraries, for example. In general though, this is a thing we've put a ton of effort to in the past, and I expect to have even more in the future. > Rusts only Tier 1 platforms are of the the backdoored x86-family A few things; we've been thinking about reconsidering the tier system because it isn't a good representation of support. ARM is basically tier 1 but there's a tiny detail about it that prevents us from fitting it into today's "tier 1" rules. What we need to improve platform support is experts in those platforms to help us. With our current people, we're doing what we can, but we'd love for people to get involved and drive better support for more platforms. This stuff absolutely matters; consider Firefox, for example: they have Tier 1 platforms that aren't Tier 1 for us (ARM), but they do depend on us. That's a problem! > independent implementations There's one significant independent implementation, but in some sense, this is something we can't actually do ourselves, otherwise it wouldn't be independent. :) I personally don't think this is a massive problem for Rust today; eventually it would be nice though. It does factor into how we do some things, as we try to pretend as though we have alternative implementations, even though we really don't today, in preparation for that future.
steveklabnik 9y ago
Hey all, I don't wanna spam comments with just "<3", so please consider this a collective reply. I can see how some may have read some of this as me leaving, but I can assure you, I'm not. I'm more committed than ever.
- stevegopnik 9y ago
  Fuck off, you wanker.
stevegopnik 9y ago
Steve Klabnik is a cunt.
chewbacha 9y ago
Your contributions have helped me gain and appreciate much of the rust eco system. You have helped build a strong community with an even stronger open-source mentality. Thank you!
unknown_apostle 9y ago
I'm studying Rust as we speak, took 3 weeks off for it. The documentation is absolutely top notch, thank you Steve & team! It won't be easy to find a project in Rust or to get a customer to start a project in it, but I sure would like to.
- zerr 9y ago
  There are no Rust jobs apparently?: https://rustjobs.rs/ https://rustjobs.rs/
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    That requires someone to actually post a job; I'm not sure how well people know of that site. I forgot it existed until you mentioned it. Most of what we're seeing in the "Rust jobs" space is companies hiring people to do Rust work, but also other work, and so they're not pure "Rust jobs". For example, take Dropbox, one of our oldest production users. They have a job opening for a Senior Software Engineer right now: https://www.dropbox.com/jobs/listing/735139 https://www.dropbox.com/jobs/listing/735139 Nowhere in this listing do they mention any specific technology. Will you get to use Rust in this job? Maybe! Maybe not. They tend to hire good programmers, and expect them to be flexible, in my understanding. Another genre is stuff like Amazon, who used to have a job posting up here, that now 404s: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/559813/sr-software-development-engineer https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/559813/sr-software-developme... This posting said that knowing Rust was a plus for the job. Does that mean you get to write Rust? I can't say, as I don't know the details of what that job entails, but it might be a good way to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Anyway, I think jobs using Rust are extremely important, and want to see more of them. It takes time though :)
    - unknown_apostle 9y ago
      Btw Steve, do you see a role for Rust in web development?
      - steveklabnik 9y ago
foota 9y ago
I didn't really understand ownership until I started working in c++, now I think I understand it a lot better.
nixpulvis 9y ago
Can't wait to see Rust for embedded development become more mature over then next few years!

220 points by doppp 9y ago

Wait, are you leaving Mozilla or your day-to-day responsibilities with Rust? I'm confused about the message here. Either way, your help in providing documentation and mentorship to me personally on IRC and thousands of other aspiring rust devs is something I'm profoundly grateful for. Thank you, Steve!!

staticassertion 9y ago
Nothing in the article seems to indicate him leaving Mozilla or rust. It ends with "here's to 5 more years".

Danihan 9y ago

No offense, but I'm not sure I understand the point of this post or why it's relevant / upvoted.

steveklabnik 9y ago
My personal stuff tends to end up here, as I've been a part of Hacker News for quite a while now. My account is almost nine years old! That said, I understand this sentiment, and it's why I didn't submit it myself. I think it's fine, as people do seem to be interested, but can also understand the opposite view.
- stevegopnik 9y ago
  How about you go gargle your dog's balls, you sodden poofter.
- weberc2 9y ago
  I can't help but laugh at the commenter below who made a new account just to troll you. Part and parcel of being a prominent part of a community, I guess.
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    They come in waves. dang and crew are generally pretty responsive in taking care of it. 4chan/8chan on the other hand... It's just a part of my life at this point.
  - stevegopnik 9y ago
    That's because you love the taste of gopnik balls, you twat.
purple-again 9y ago
Being people ourselves many of us are as fascinated by the Recognized People associated with the things we’re interested in as we are with the thing itself. It’s an interesting facet of the human experience that lets me live Steve’s life for a moment through my own lens of life experiences.
stevegopnik 9y ago
That's because Hackernews is filled with SJW manginas. That's why.

Buttons840 9y ago

I don't know Rust very well, but hope to learn it better soon. steveklabnik is the only person from the Rust team I recognize by name. He's always leaving detailed and positive replies in Rust related forums across the Internet. Thanks for all your hard work Steve.

StavrosK 9y ago
I'm also always positively surprised by the people in the #rust-beginners IRC channel. No matter how dumb my question is, someone will always helpfully point me to the relevant documentation. They're so helpful that sometimes I worry that I'm inconveniencing them with my incessant questions.
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  It’s no inconvenience! That’s why we’re there :)
  - gaurangagg 9y ago
    Wow! I will join the IRC channel right away. I always wanted to learn and explore Rust.

saghm 9y ago

Although I can't speak for the rest of the software industry, Steve's hard work and talent have certainly made a huge impact on the Rust language and community. If you read this, thanks for everything you do to make Rust great!

doomrobo 9y ago

The Rust project would be very different without Steve's efforts. One of the greatest things about the project is the coherence, clarity, rigor, and ease-of-use of the documentation system. The Rust Book has also been a massive aid in attracting new users. I only hope that Steve continues to lend his talent to the project in the future.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Every great language needs a Steve. If you don't read anything else programming related next year, read the Rust book. Even if you don't need Rust, there's a lot you can learn from it. https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/ https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/
- ksec 9y ago
  While it is great that Rust has Steve, sadly this is at the cost of Ruby Rails. I wonder if he will ever comes back to the Ruby communities.
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    I still really love Ruby! I come to conferences sometimes. There's just not enough hours in the day.
- stevegopnik 9y ago
  Yes, if you are hellbent on destroying the credibility of the language.

madez 9y ago

> Five years in, I think my journey has been successful so far. I’m proud of how far Rust has come. That said, there’s a lot more work to do. I’m still committed as ever to getting that work done, (...) It's good to hear that people behind Rust intent to continue working on Rust. One thing I'm missing, however, is what exactly is considered important to be solved. There are many things how Rust could be made more viable or attractive for a variety of scenarios. For example, I don't consider it important to be able to compile Rust to JavaScript, because I don't think JavaScript is a good thing. On the other hand, downstream packaging of Rust and libraries is important. There are scenarios where rustup and cargo are not acceptable. Is this on the radar? Another issue is target/host support and independent implementations. Rusts only Tier 1 platforms are of the backdoored x86-family. Is this not considered an issue to be solved to make the world a better place? I don't intent to blame, shame or finger-point anybody, but just point out critical remarks that come to mind.

vvanders 9y ago
Most of that is covered pretty well in "Rust in 2017"[1] which somehow didn't make it to the front page. Splitting out cargo and build systems is something that is explicitly called out and I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of work ongoing to get other Tier 1 targets online. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15980359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15980359
steveklabnik 9y ago
No blame/shame taken! Everyone has their own opinions as to the work to be done. We now have a yearly roadmap process for each year, and are soon going to be opening that up to community discussion. Feedback from everyone that cares about Rust is extremely important! That's also part of why I didn't elaborate; my thoughts on that are a whole big post unto itself. That said, my personal focus is on documentation, ease of use, and growth, so those are some broad areas in which I'd like to push hard on next year. The funny thing about goals is that they often tie into other goals, for example, I believe that documentation is a huge part of ease of use. Same with how other people's goals might fit into my goals; language design is also a big part of ease of use, for example. What I will say is that I'm currently prototyping a complete re-think of how Rust does documentation; I'm excited to share it but it's not ready yet. To briefly comment on some of the points you've raised: > I don't consider it important to be able to compile Rust to JavaScript We share this opinion, but compiling to WebAssembly is a whole different ballgame. > There are scenarios where rustup and cargo are not acceptable. Is this on the radar? It's hard to say without knowing more details of what exactly you mean; distros are already packaging Rust and libraries, for example. In general though, this is a thing we've put a ton of effort to in the past, and I expect to have even more in the future. > Rusts only Tier 1 platforms are of the the backdoored x86-family A few things; we've been thinking about reconsidering the tier system because it isn't a good representation of support. ARM is basically tier 1 but there's a tiny detail about it that prevents us from fitting it into today's "tier 1" rules. What we need to improve platform support is experts in those platforms to help us. With our current people, we're doing what we can, but we'd love for people to get involved and drive better support for more platforms. This stuff absolutely matters; consider Firefox, for example: they have Tier 1 platforms that aren't Tier 1 for us (ARM), but they do depend on us. That's a problem! > independent implementations There's one significant independent implementation, but in some sense, this is something we can't actually do ourselves, otherwise it wouldn't be independent. :) I personally don't think this is a massive problem for Rust today; eventually it would be nice though. It does factor into how we do some things, as we try to pretend as though we have alternative implementations, even though we really don't today, in preparation for that future.

steveklabnik 9y ago

Hey all, I don't wanna spam comments with just "<3", so please consider this a collective reply. I can see how some may have read some of this as me leaving, but I can assure you, I'm not. I'm more committed than ever.

stevegopnik 9y ago
Fuck off, you wanker.

stevegopnik 9y ago

Steve Klabnik is a cunt.

chewbacha 9y ago

Your contributions have helped me gain and appreciate much of the rust eco system. You have helped build a strong community with an even stronger open-source mentality. Thank you!

unknown_apostle 9y ago

I'm studying Rust as we speak, took 3 weeks off for it. The documentation is absolutely top notch, thank you Steve & team! It won't be easy to find a project in Rust or to get a customer to start a project in it, but I sure would like to.

zerr 9y ago
There are no Rust jobs apparently?: https://rustjobs.rs/ https://rustjobs.rs/
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  That requires someone to actually post a job; I'm not sure how well people know of that site. I forgot it existed until you mentioned it. Most of what we're seeing in the "Rust jobs" space is companies hiring people to do Rust work, but also other work, and so they're not pure "Rust jobs". For example, take Dropbox, one of our oldest production users. They have a job opening for a Senior Software Engineer right now: https://www.dropbox.com/jobs/listing/735139 https://www.dropbox.com/jobs/listing/735139 Nowhere in this listing do they mention any specific technology. Will you get to use Rust in this job? Maybe! Maybe not. They tend to hire good programmers, and expect them to be flexible, in my understanding. Another genre is stuff like Amazon, who used to have a job posting up here, that now 404s: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/559813/sr-software-development-engineer https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/559813/sr-software-developme... This posting said that knowing Rust was a plus for the job. Does that mean you get to write Rust? I can't say, as I don't know the details of what that job entails, but it might be a good way to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Anyway, I think jobs using Rust are extremely important, and want to see more of them. It takes time though :)
  - unknown_apostle 9y ago
    Btw Steve, do you see a role for Rust in web development?
    - steveklabnik 9y ago

foota 9y ago

I didn't really understand ownership until I started working in c++, now I think I understand it a lot better.

nixpulvis 9y ago

Can't wait to see Rust for embedded development become more mature over then next few years!