6 ms·

Linus: > I'm interested in the project, but I think it's driven by people who are very excited about Rust, and I want to see how it actually then ends up worki

Linus: > I'm interested in the project, but I think it's driven by people who are very excited about Rust, and I want to see how it actually then ends up working in practice.

brundolf 6y ago
[deleted] (Deleted because I only meant to bring up the broader phenomenon of what makes a person feel "excited" or "unexcited" about a language; I was specifically trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid the hotbed topic that has arisen below)
- steveklabnik 6y ago
  It would be a mistake to characterize this push as an "emotional concern." The main driver is security. The folks doing this work are advocates of memory safety first, and Rust second. It just so happens that in this particular context, Rust is the most appropriate choice. EDIT: it's all good! I didn't think your comments were bad.
  - brundolf 6y ago
    [deleted]
    - steveklabnik 6y ago
      I think it depends on what "re-write it in Rust" means. Some people say that it means folks specifically asking for a project to be re-written in Rust. Others seem to imply that any new code written in Rust counts. To illustrate the difference, ripgrep would be the latter, but not the former. If we're talking about the former, I think the actual instances of this are few and far between, and are complained about far more than actually occurs. At one point I was actually trying to get hard data on this, but there really were only a handful of times I could find this seriously occurring, and they were pretty easily dismissed. The folks who talk about it like a plague of some kind never seem to show their evidence, or link to one or two examples at best. If we're talking about the latter, it shouldn't be surprising that folks who like a language write software in that language. That's why languages exist. I don't know why some people really want to say that folks cannot write whatever software they want in whatever language they want.
      - capableweb 6y ago
        > At one point I was actually trying to get hard data on this, but there really were only a handful of times I could find this seriously occurring This is probably depending on the environment. Corporate environments would move very slow, open source kind of fast and SMB/SME somewhere in the middle. All of them plagued by cargoculting, but especially average performing SMB/SME are the most guilty, and also where I've seen the most "Hey, we should probably rewrite this service in Rust because it'll be better for sure" since some years back.
        steveklabnik 6y ago
        Yes, this is a good point, for sure.
        capableweb 6y ago
        I actually stumbled upon[1] a data source for you! Seems there is some activity in the "Rewrite it in Rust" domain, and there is a collection of it being suggested in a lot of places: https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561093
        steveklabnik 6y ago
        Right, but this is what I mean. If this is the best collection of stuff, well, it doesn't make a compelling argument that there is a huge scourge of this around the internet. Even if we assume these are all legit issues, there have been 66 total in the five years this repository has existed. That is a miniscule number. If we actually look at the issues, many of them are not instances of an outsider demanding a project being rewritten in Rust. Let's look at the most recent five issues, to pick a random sample: * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/62 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/62 This is showing a branch that the team themselves made. It is not an outside demand to re-write it in Rust. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/59 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/59 This one does appear to be legit. Not a ton of drama here, a polite conversation that was closed without issue, even though its existence is generally a bit annoying, yes. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/58 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/58 This again is someone who is doing this for their own project. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/57 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/57 This is a transcription of a joke in a telegram chat. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/53 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/53 This is a person who opened an issue on this project, but does not appear to have asked upstream about it. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/51 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/51 This one is amusing, given the article, but again, isn't an upstream request. Let's look at recent closed issues: * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/67 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/67 This is a person who made this issue, then two minutes later, opened an issue being a jerk on the target repo. Yes, that is annoying for the person who had the issue opened, but is hardly an indication that these are real requests. This person is trolling. The next seven most recent closed issues are someone who has just opened issues with random technologies they thought they'd be funny. I was only gonna do five, like the opened issues, but it's clear this is a series, so have a bonus two. So already, we have like, let's round it up: two real issues here, out of fourteen. I am not convinced. (Your hacker news link seems like nonsense to me?)
  - busterarm 6y ago
    I think if security is a main concern of people working on Linux, there are both lower hanging fruit AND bigger fish to fry than getting code into Rust. Not that it isn't a worthy effort, but it's still an effort by people who are more excited about Rust than they are acting in the interest of security. Edit: It's almost a meme at this point that you can't even be remotely critical of Rust on this board without kneejerk mass downvoting.
    - steveklabnik 6y ago
      Do you know anything about the people whose motives you are questioning? What work they've done, and why? I think if you did, you may not say what you've said.
      - busterarm 6y ago
        I'm well aware of whom I'm speaking to and the efforts made by others. I'm also well aware of lots of other security problems facing Linux that need love and the steps being taken by other operating systems where Linux lags behind. So while I'm not saying that there isn't a concern about security by the people involved, I am certainly saying why this as opposed to other things. I have my pet problems and areas where I prefer to work too.
    - pdimitar 6y ago
      > there are both lower hanging fruit AND bigger fish to fry than getting code into Rust. Do tell, I am very interested? > but it's still an effort by people who are more excited about Rust than they are acting in the interest of security Needlessly dismissive. What if the people got excited because of the increased security?
      - busterarm 6y ago
        > Needlessly dismissive. What if the people got excited because of the increased security? If only people were so excited about making OpenSSL not a flaming hot bag of shit. Can't wait to find out what that patch on Thursday will be for.
- capableweb 6y ago
  I think emotional reaction happens to a lot of things that we like, where we raise up their benefits and downplay their negatives. At least for the first few years, until we're in a different context or something else comes along that solves it even better. I also think that's why lisp people are so feverish about lisp as well: as you get more involved in the language with its charms, the more excitement you get and you want to see the language in more places/contexts
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

Linus: > I'm interested in the project, but I think it's driven by people who are very excited about Rust, and I want to see how it actually then ends up working in practice.

brundolf 6y ago

[deleted] (Deleted because I only meant to bring up the broader phenomenon of what makes a person feel "excited" or "unexcited" about a language; I was specifically trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid the hotbed topic that has arisen below)

steveklabnik 6y ago
It would be a mistake to characterize this push as an "emotional concern." The main driver is security. The folks doing this work are advocates of memory safety first, and Rust second. It just so happens that in this particular context, Rust is the most appropriate choice. EDIT: it's all good! I didn't think your comments were bad.
- brundolf 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - steveklabnik 6y ago
    I think it depends on what "re-write it in Rust" means. Some people say that it means folks specifically asking for a project to be re-written in Rust. Others seem to imply that any new code written in Rust counts. To illustrate the difference, ripgrep would be the latter, but not the former. If we're talking about the former, I think the actual instances of this are few and far between, and are complained about far more than actually occurs. At one point I was actually trying to get hard data on this, but there really were only a handful of times I could find this seriously occurring, and they were pretty easily dismissed. The folks who talk about it like a plague of some kind never seem to show their evidence, or link to one or two examples at best. If we're talking about the latter, it shouldn't be surprising that folks who like a language write software in that language. That's why languages exist. I don't know why some people really want to say that folks cannot write whatever software they want in whatever language they want.
    - capableweb 6y ago
      > At one point I was actually trying to get hard data on this, but there really were only a handful of times I could find this seriously occurring This is probably depending on the environment. Corporate environments would move very slow, open source kind of fast and SMB/SME somewhere in the middle. All of them plagued by cargoculting, but especially average performing SMB/SME are the most guilty, and also where I've seen the most "Hey, we should probably rewrite this service in Rust because it'll be better for sure" since some years back.
      - steveklabnik 6y ago
        Yes, this is a good point, for sure.
        capableweb 6y ago
        I actually stumbled upon[1] a data source for you! Seems there is some activity in the "Rewrite it in Rust" domain, and there is a collection of it being suggested in a lot of places: https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561093
        steveklabnik 6y ago
        Right, but this is what I mean. If this is the best collection of stuff, well, it doesn't make a compelling argument that there is a huge scourge of this around the internet. Even if we assume these are all legit issues, there have been 66 total in the five years this repository has existed. That is a miniscule number. If we actually look at the issues, many of them are not instances of an outsider demanding a project being rewritten in Rust. Let's look at the most recent five issues, to pick a random sample: * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/62 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/62 This is showing a branch that the team themselves made. It is not an outside demand to re-write it in Rust. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/59 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/59 This one does appear to be legit. Not a ton of drama here, a polite conversation that was closed without issue, even though its existence is generally a bit annoying, yes. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/58 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/58 This again is someone who is doing this for their own project. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/57 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/57 This is a transcription of a joke in a telegram chat. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/53 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/53 This is a person who opened an issue on this project, but does not appear to have asked upstream about it. * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/51 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/51 This one is amusing, given the article, but again, isn't an upstream request. Let's look at recent closed issues: * https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/67 https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR/issues/67 This is a person who made this issue, then two minutes later, opened an issue being a jerk on the target repo. Yes, that is annoying for the person who had the issue opened, but is hardly an indication that these are real requests. This person is trolling. The next seven most recent closed issues are someone who has just opened issues with random technologies they thought they'd be funny. I was only gonna do five, like the opened issues, but it's clear this is a series, so have a bonus two. So already, we have like, let's round it up: two real issues here, out of fourteen. I am not convinced. (Your hacker news link seems like nonsense to me?)
- busterarm 6y ago
  I think if security is a main concern of people working on Linux, there are both lower hanging fruit AND bigger fish to fry than getting code into Rust. Not that it isn't a worthy effort, but it's still an effort by people who are more excited about Rust than they are acting in the interest of security. Edit: It's almost a meme at this point that you can't even be remotely critical of Rust on this board without kneejerk mass downvoting.
  - steveklabnik 6y ago
    Do you know anything about the people whose motives you are questioning? What work they've done, and why? I think if you did, you may not say what you've said.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      I'm well aware of whom I'm speaking to and the efforts made by others. I'm also well aware of lots of other security problems facing Linux that need love and the steps being taken by other operating systems where Linux lags behind. So while I'm not saying that there isn't a concern about security by the people involved, I am certainly saying why this as opposed to other things. I have my pet problems and areas where I prefer to work too.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    > there are both lower hanging fruit AND bigger fish to fry than getting code into Rust. Do tell, I am very interested? > but it's still an effort by people who are more excited about Rust than they are acting in the interest of security Needlessly dismissive. What if the people got excited because of the increased security?
    - busterarm 6y ago
      > Needlessly dismissive. What if the people got excited because of the increased security? If only people were so excited about making OpenSSL not a flaming hot bag of shit. Can't wait to find out what that patch on Thursday will be for.
capableweb 6y ago
I think emotional reaction happens to a lot of things that we like, where we raise up their benefits and downplay their negatives. At least for the first few years, until we're in a different context or something else comes along that solves it even better. I also think that's why lisp people are so feverish about lisp as well: as you get more involved in the language with its charms, the more excitement you get and you want to see the language in more places/contexts
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]