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>I want big companies to be involved in Rust Why? Steve Klabnik is one of my favorite technical writers. He is also an anti-capitalist. Early Rust documentati

>I want big companies to be involved in Rust Why? Steve Klabnik is one of my favorite technical writers. He is also an anti-capitalist. Early Rust documentation contained a lot of references to influential 20th century Marxists like Rosa Luxemburg. I feel people like him should increasingly stand their ground instead of being apologetic about their views.

steveklabnik 5y ago
I don't think it's possible to build a production grade programming language today without large amounts of capital. Unfortunately, companies are the only way to gain access to that amount of money. I elaborated a bit on that over here: https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1397930913854590976 https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1397930913854590976
- rtfeldman 5y ago
  Elm did it. :) Elm isn't as big as Rust or other languages, but it's definitely production-grade (in that loads of companies are using it in production), and the only capital that's been put into it is approximately one full-time software engineer being paid to work on it for 5ish years.
- AndyKelley 5y ago
  Challenge accepted >:-)
  - steveklabnik 5y ago
    I'm rooting for you :)
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Here's hoping you finally get lambdas and destructors, and can step up.
    - AndyKelley 5y ago
      Thanks for the feedback - I created a special issue tracker that gets higher priority, can you submit your proposal there? https://is.gd/WVZvnI https://is.gd/WVZvnI
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        Or not, I guess. I was, like Steve, rooting for you. Not so sure now...
pphysch 5y ago
Big (Tech) companies, especially Amazon, are non-capitalist in the sense that are large bureaucracies with complex internal economic planning mechanisms insulated from the "free market". Amazon has tremendous economic planning capability, perhaps more than Stalin's CPSU ever did. That doesn't mean they are "socialist", of course--they are denizens of the mixed economy, "islands of conscious power in this ocean of unconscious co-operation like lumps of butter coagulating in a pail of buttermilk.” [1]. Truly "capitalist" companies won't/can't scale beyond a few hundred employees before imploding under the weight of individualist inefficiency. I think Valve is an (in)famous example of this in the tech space. [1] - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0335.1937.tb00002.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0335...
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  This does not mean that big tech companies are not capitalist in the sense that ordinary people use the word "capitalist", nor indeed in the sense that economists generally use the word "capitalist" either. No critic of capitalism intends for their critique not to apply to actual businesses as they must exist (even Valve). It may be an interesting fact that firms are not organized unconsciously according to a price mechanism, but it is not a surprising one nor of any particular salience here.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    This "ordinary" definition of capitalism is vacuous because it views all mixed economies as "capitalist" economies. It's a fallacious definition that marginalizes economic "socialism" as an impossible bogeyman (i.e. zero private property). TINA and all that.

steveklabnik 5y ago

I don't think it's possible to build a production grade programming language today without large amounts of capital. Unfortunately, companies are the only way to gain access to that amount of money. I elaborated a bit on that over here: https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1397930913854590976 https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1397930913854590976

rtfeldman 5y ago
Elm did it. :) Elm isn't as big as Rust or other languages, but it's definitely production-grade (in that loads of companies are using it in production), and the only capital that's been put into it is approximately one full-time software engineer being paid to work on it for 5ish years.
AndyKelley 5y ago
Challenge accepted >:-)
- steveklabnik 5y ago
  I'm rooting for you :)
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Here's hoping you finally get lambdas and destructors, and can step up.
  - AndyKelley 5y ago
    Thanks for the feedback - I created a special issue tracker that gets higher priority, can you submit your proposal there? https://is.gd/WVZvnI https://is.gd/WVZvnI
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Or not, I guess. I was, like Steve, rooting for you. Not so sure now...

pphysch 5y ago

Big (Tech) companies, especially Amazon, are non-capitalist in the sense that are large bureaucracies with complex internal economic planning mechanisms insulated from the "free market". Amazon has tremendous economic planning capability, perhaps more than Stalin's CPSU ever did. That doesn't mean they are "socialist", of course--they are denizens of the mixed economy, "islands of conscious power in this ocean of unconscious co-operation like lumps of butter coagulating in a pail of buttermilk.” [1]. Truly "capitalist" companies won't/can't scale beyond a few hundred employees before imploding under the weight of individualist inefficiency. I think Valve is an (in)famous example of this in the tech space. [1] - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0335.1937.tb00002.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0335...

mrtranscendence 5y ago
This does not mean that big tech companies are not capitalist in the sense that ordinary people use the word "capitalist", nor indeed in the sense that economists generally use the word "capitalist" either. No critic of capitalism intends for their critique not to apply to actual businesses as they must exist (even Valve). It may be an interesting fact that firms are not organized unconsciously according to a price mechanism, but it is not a surprising one nor of any particular salience here.
- pphysch 5y ago
  This "ordinary" definition of capitalism is vacuous because it views all mixed economies as "capitalist" economies. It's a fallacious definition that marginalizes economic "socialism" as an impossible bogeyman (i.e. zero private property). TINA and all that.