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Right, and add on top of this the hubris has towards the topic of an official specification. Simply asking the question if one is being considered or worked on

Right, and add on top of this the hubris has towards the topic of an official specification. Simply asking the question if one is being considered or worked on gets you scoffed at, as if you were some unenlightened simpleton. "Look at all of these other languages without one!" they remark. How does this help the discourse? I think what describes rust perfectly to me, at least at this time, is the red box here https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/ https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/ -- something that no matter how many times undergoes a release, still feels incomplete. And for the record, I am someone very interested in using rust at work. Just can't until it stops feeling like an experiment.

steveklabnik 5y ago
I am sorry you’ve had that experience. The position of the project has been “we would like one, but we want to do one right, and that will take time.” Millions of Euros and years of work have been poured into this. It is something we care about.
- mjw1007 5y ago
  I think you can measure what a project cares about by the priorities they give to different pieces of work. Empirically, since 1.0 the project as a whole has prioritised adding new features over documenting (and agreeing the intended behaviour of) existing ones. In early 2019, the roadmap said the language team would make updating the reference a priority that year. But as far as I can tell nothing happened, and it hasn't appeared on the roadmap since then.
  - steveklabnik 5y ago
    Yes, as it turns out, open source projects cannot dictate what people work on to the same degree as companies, and there are far more people willing to do non-spec work. Those efforts aren't fungible though; progress has been made on both fronts, the spec work is just far less visible. "is important" != "the most important thing"
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  Thank you , I absolutely believe you intend to, I am rooting for rust. I just hope it happens soon.
  - steveklabnik 5y ago
    I wouldn't hold your breath, but I appreciate it. :) It's kind of funny given that often Rust is thought of as changing too much, but when it comes to some things, we often take a very, very, very long time because we want to get them right. The spec is like, the largest example of this.
worik 5y ago
I agree. But it cannot mature without a long period immature. It is the nature of reality.
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  I agree as well, but Rust first appeared some time in 2010. To contrast it with another popular language that rust is ironically pitted against for some reason, Go, which was released in November 2009, managed to be released with a formal specification that they validate against multiple implementations (thanks to Ian Lance Taylor, primarily), and a 1.0 compatibility promise.

steveklabnik 5y ago

I am sorry you’ve had that experience. The position of the project has been “we would like one, but we want to do one right, and that will take time.” Millions of Euros and years of work have been poured into this. It is something we care about.

mjw1007 5y ago
I think you can measure what a project cares about by the priorities they give to different pieces of work. Empirically, since 1.0 the project as a whole has prioritised adding new features over documenting (and agreeing the intended behaviour of) existing ones. In early 2019, the roadmap said the language team would make updating the reference a priority that year. But as far as I can tell nothing happened, and it hasn't appeared on the roadmap since then.
- steveklabnik 5y ago
  Yes, as it turns out, open source projects cannot dictate what people work on to the same degree as companies, and there are far more people willing to do non-spec work. Those efforts aren't fungible though; progress has been made on both fronts, the spec work is just far less visible. "is important" != "the most important thing"
dimitrios1 5y ago
Thank you , I absolutely believe you intend to, I am rooting for rust. I just hope it happens soon.
- steveklabnik 5y ago
  I wouldn't hold your breath, but I appreciate it. :) It's kind of funny given that often Rust is thought of as changing too much, but when it comes to some things, we often take a very, very, very long time because we want to get them right. The spec is like, the largest example of this.

worik 5y ago

I agree. But it cannot mature without a long period immature. It is the nature of reality.

dimitrios1 5y ago
I agree as well, but Rust first appeared some time in 2010. To contrast it with another popular language that rust is ironically pitted against for some reason, Go, which was released in November 2009, managed to be released with a formal specification that they validate against multiple implementations (thanks to Ian Lance Taylor, primarily), and a 1.0 compatibility promise.