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This doesn't surprise me. Rust's toxic community was one of several reasons that made me turn away from the language. When people ask on a Go forum (e.g. r/gola

This doesn't surprise me. Rust's toxic community was one of several reasons that made me turn away from the language. When people ask on a Go forum (e.g. r/golang) whether they should switch to or write a project in Go, they tend to get good and professional advice, and often this advice is to stick with the existing language and approach. I don't know why this is so, but with Rust you mostly get zealots with zero ability to evaluate the Pros and Cons of their language of choice.

Xorlev 5y ago
Painting an entire community with the same brush seems to itself be fairly toxic behavior berift of signal. Let's keep focused on AWS's poor greenwashing post. You could replace all the names of the technologies and it's still just as bad.
- geodel 5y ago
  > Painting an entire community with the same brush seems to itself be fairly toxic behavior berift of signal. Communities are painted toxic all the time rightly or wrongly. To say community have feeling and are to treated as person does not seem to be appropriate. Also calling people toxic who called some community toxic is akin to name calling and I dare say much more common in Rust circles.
mcronce 5y ago
That's not really consistent with my experience in the Rust community at all. Memes aside, rewrites for the sake of rewrites are typically discouraged. When language comparisons are made, they tend to clearly highlight objective and subjective pros/cons. In particular, the referenced AWS article is typically called out as a bad "study" Maybe it was different a few years ago, but this is what I've seen since late 2019ish.
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  Rewrites for the sake of rewrites is a HN thing. This used to happen with other languages too. In 2015, Front page posts on a given day would have "xyz in Go" and it was JavaScript before that. People tend to reimplement systems they know in languages they are learning and it's perfectly alright. But, these are engineers at huge companies rewriting core system components for dubious reasons AND writing a deliberately misleading blog post about it. Now more engineers with an agenda would cite these posts to their managers and get their rewrites.
  - lanstin 5y ago
    Rewriting a small thing you know well is a fabulous way to understand the new language, because your focus isn't on "what should the code do" but "how do I make the code do this thing." I've had senior tech leadership explain that rewriting a big system into a new language is done because the real goal is to rewrite the old system that no one understands well enough and is gradually becoming scary to change; people are enthused for the shiny new language, and at the end the current organization understands this crucial system for a few more years. People in companies write the blog posts because it helps get promotions ("visibility" "industry leadership").
    - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
      > People in companies write the blog posts because it helps get promotions ("visibility" "industry leadership"). This is definitely toxic work culture that needs to be fixed
  - mcronce 5y ago
    I wouldn't actually characterize "Wordle in Rust", "xyz in Go", etc for the sake of learning a language as "rewrites for the sake of rewrites", though - I would characterize them as rewrites for the sake of learning and there's nothing wrong with that. Coming up with a new idea and implementing it with technology you don't know is a lot harder than implementing an existing idea. Blog posts about them are often interesting simply because you get a new perspective on the tools you use frequently. I'm talking about the types of things where a rewrite is done not for the purpose of learning, or because a specific set of issues is identified in the existing project, etc...but because "this language is better so I'm rewriting X in it"
pohl 5y ago
I think Rust has grown way beyond the point where it makes sense to characterize the community as a whole. I imagine you could get entirely different experiences depending upon whether you were engaging with people in some HN thread, or Reddit, or IRC, or Discord,...and even day by day or thread by thread. Where specifically did you encounter the toxicity?
the__alchemist 5y ago
You can use the language and ignore the parts of the community you don't like. I've made similar observations, but still conclude the language is top-notch. It also seems like a large portion of the posts I see in embedded Rust are about generics and/or async. I have no interest in them. (Most of the embedded code I've seen using them can be written more plainly without). It also turns new people off the language due to the syntax clutter. So, they think "Rust is hard to write/messy". It's not the language - it's how parts of the community use it. I also dislike the condescending attitude when C code comes up .
- mustache_kimono 5y ago
  I'll say as someone who leans more towards Rust, and its community, in this somewhat manufactured debate -- I think it's pretty hard not to be a little prickly when most of the criticism amounts to "I hate the hype!" or "I don't like change!" My opinion has always been: Be Confident Enough to Allow Others to Disagree. Some in the Rust community sometimes have a problem with this, but, my God, it's not as if the arguments against Rust are very good, or as if people don't love to troll Rust, like the parent to your comment. Most criticisms are embarrassingly flimsy.
  - Yoric 5y ago
    (to complete what mustache_kimono wrote) Which is not to say that Rust doesn't have a number of downsides. And I'm writing this as a Rust enthusiast and (very minor) contributor to the Rust compiler.
  - qsdf38100 5y ago
    I hate the hype. I like honesty, pros vs cons. Rust community seems full of zealots and evangelists. Those people are very vocal about pros, and condescending. As soon as someone brings any con or isn’t convinced, they are just bad programmers, with bad arguments, and even « embarrassingly flimsy » criticism…
    - mustache_kimono 5y ago
dataangel 5y ago
If you read the full context, the misunderstanding comes from research not done by the Rust community. You just found a way to reinforce your own bias.
0xFEE1DEAD 5y ago
Every interaction I’ve had with the rust community was toxic in nature. Also for whatever reason all those „rust vs go“ articles are always coming from the rust corner. It’s like the rust community is frustrated about go success and they individually feel the need to attack their perceived competitor meanwhile the go community has no issue with any other language.
- pyjarrett 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - kitkat_new 5y ago
    I don't get the logic of dropping a language you find great and you are productive in because of a few people
    - busterarm 5y ago
      You'll eventually have to cooperate with those people, whether it's on OSS or in the workplace. It's even worse when really senior figures in a community are also the source of the toxicity.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - sirwhinesalot 5y ago
      Those people will (potentially) be your future co-workers... So it is a valid concern. That said, I have not interacted with the Rust community and cannot make any comments in that regard. Language is pretty nice though.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - pyjarrett 5y ago
tashoecraft 5y ago
I think Rust has attracted a lot of people who don't really program in it often, but try to advocate for it. My experiences with the community have always been good, and they are consistently rated as having a really great community, but a growing community will always have issues.
- ziml77 5y ago
  I’m fairly certain this is the case. The people who seem to want everything rewritten in Rust are not necessarily also people who actually use the language. They likely just heard that it improves security and stability to use Rust over C. Would be similar to the people who bring up Ada as an alternative; the chances that they’ve actually tried it are minuscule. And to be very clear I’m not trying to say there is no overlap at all, but I don’t think you can call the Rust community toxic because of those people. (I wonder if the people who treat Rust like a religion realize how harmful their behavior is. I want Rust to be seen as a reasonable option, but that’s difficult when you have the evangelists scaring people away)
kitkat_new 5y ago
In my experience, the Rust community isn't toxic at all. To the contrary: when I started to explore Rust, it was very welcoming, helped finding the answer to all my nooby questions, which they probably heard a dozen times - despite having a lot of C++ and JS baggage
- MisterTea 5y ago
  You have a veery one sided perspective. Someone adopting/learning a language will be met with plenty of positivity and encouragement. The toxicity comes in to play once you post something critical of the language, even if it has merit.
  - Yoric 5y ago
    So you're saying that people leaving comments on (I assume) blogs are typically less civil than people who take the time to work with newcomers and actually make the community work? That is certainly true, but for pretty much every community that I know, not limited to any programming language or technology.
- tayo42 5y ago
  Did you see what happened to the actix project. That was embarrassing
  - Yoric 5y ago
    What happened to the actix project? Asking, because I use it daily :)
    - tayo42 5y ago
      It used to use a bunch of unsafe, someone decided that wasn't acceptable and it blew up into a whole thing where people started dog piling on the project and the maintainer. everyone got emotional, he eventually quit and gave up actix to someone else i think. pretty unnecessary and childish the way people acted towards him imo. a lot happened on reddit and github so it should be easy to find.
odiroot 5y ago
I don't know which community is toxic and wouldn't even risk using such strong term. Still, I have to say, it's really weird to see (last few months) everything being rewritten into Rust, just for the sake of pride(?). Haven't we learned anything from the NodeJS craze?
- josephcsible 5y ago
  > just for the sake of pride(?). It's to prevent all memory safety bugs.
  - kangalioo 5y ago
    Partly true, but this doesn't apply to many rewritten tools, like cat or ls where memory safety bugs are tolerable
    - ansible 5y ago
      Well, I don't know about the cat command (though that _is_ appropriate for something like the Redox OS, which aspires to be a pure-Rust desktop operating system). But there is a broad-based desire to rewrite libraries in Rust for a couple (IMHO valid) reasons. One is the API. While it is possible to have a nice and idiomatic Rust API to a C library, it will often be nicer to use when it is designed from the ground-up in Rust. Traits, interfaces, etc. It is also often desirable to avoid C when cross-compiling (such as for embedded systems), as that is generally a hassle to set up and get working seamlessly.
    - detaro 5y ago
      Doesn't sound like things where you'd want bugs either. But also the rewrites for this kind of thing are usually not that "serious". A few people do it because they can or because they think it's interesting, but it's not like there are large pushes to replace such tools (E.g. there's been "lets rewrite basic tools in Go" projects too, and nobody is surprised that they aren't in widespread use"). The winners usually are not in that category, but tools that stand alone.
    - 5y ago
lnxg33k1 5y ago
To some extent I agree with you, I don't like the rust community generically, as I feel the toxicity too, but I mean the language and the offering of a fast but easy and checked platform to be are still good enough to let me just ignore them, I mean on IRC you always find people who are going to be bad, and people who will just help, and who cares about those who are bad, I guess just feel a few seconds of pity for them and move on
- Yoric 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, where did you see any toxicity? I'm both on the Rust forums and on the Rust Matrix community and I haven't seen anything toxic at all. Everything I've seen that looked like it could become toxic was handled gently by someone with a bit of seniority.
burnished 5y ago
Its weird, because the negative stuff I see around the Rust community is posts like this with name calling or histrionics, and the positive stuff is like 'thoughtful post mortem about why Rust compile times are so bad (but are improving)'.
Yoric 5y ago
Really? I've never found a community as nice as the Rust one. Where did you ask?

Xorlev 5y ago

Painting an entire community with the same brush seems to itself be fairly toxic behavior berift of signal. Let's keep focused on AWS's poor greenwashing post. You could replace all the names of the technologies and it's still just as bad.

geodel 5y ago
> Painting an entire community with the same brush seems to itself be fairly toxic behavior berift of signal. Communities are painted toxic all the time rightly or wrongly. To say community have feeling and are to treated as person does not seem to be appropriate. Also calling people toxic who called some community toxic is akin to name calling and I dare say much more common in Rust circles.

mcronce 5y ago

That's not really consistent with my experience in the Rust community at all. Memes aside, rewrites for the sake of rewrites are typically discouraged. When language comparisons are made, they tend to clearly highlight objective and subjective pros/cons. In particular, the referenced AWS article is typically called out as a bad "study" Maybe it was different a few years ago, but this is what I've seen since late 2019ish.

mohanmcgeek 5y ago
Rewrites for the sake of rewrites is a HN thing. This used to happen with other languages too. In 2015, Front page posts on a given day would have "xyz in Go" and it was JavaScript before that. People tend to reimplement systems they know in languages they are learning and it's perfectly alright. But, these are engineers at huge companies rewriting core system components for dubious reasons AND writing a deliberately misleading blog post about it. Now more engineers with an agenda would cite these posts to their managers and get their rewrites.
- lanstin 5y ago
  Rewriting a small thing you know well is a fabulous way to understand the new language, because your focus isn't on "what should the code do" but "how do I make the code do this thing." I've had senior tech leadership explain that rewriting a big system into a new language is done because the real goal is to rewrite the old system that no one understands well enough and is gradually becoming scary to change; people are enthused for the shiny new language, and at the end the current organization understands this crucial system for a few more years. People in companies write the blog posts because it helps get promotions ("visibility" "industry leadership").
  - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    > People in companies write the blog posts because it helps get promotions ("visibility" "industry leadership"). This is definitely toxic work culture that needs to be fixed
- mcronce 5y ago
  I wouldn't actually characterize "Wordle in Rust", "xyz in Go", etc for the sake of learning a language as "rewrites for the sake of rewrites", though - I would characterize them as rewrites for the sake of learning and there's nothing wrong with that. Coming up with a new idea and implementing it with technology you don't know is a lot harder than implementing an existing idea. Blog posts about them are often interesting simply because you get a new perspective on the tools you use frequently. I'm talking about the types of things where a rewrite is done not for the purpose of learning, or because a specific set of issues is identified in the existing project, etc...but because "this language is better so I'm rewriting X in it"

pohl 5y ago

I think Rust has grown way beyond the point where it makes sense to characterize the community as a whole. I imagine you could get entirely different experiences depending upon whether you were engaging with people in some HN thread, or Reddit, or IRC, or Discord,...and even day by day or thread by thread. Where specifically did you encounter the toxicity?

the__alchemist 5y ago

You can use the language and ignore the parts of the community you don't like. I've made similar observations, but still conclude the language is top-notch. It also seems like a large portion of the posts I see in embedded Rust are about generics and/or async. I have no interest in them. (Most of the embedded code I've seen using them can be written more plainly without). It also turns new people off the language due to the syntax clutter. So, they think "Rust is hard to write/messy". It's not the language - it's how parts of the community use it. I also dislike the condescending attitude when C code comes up .

mustache_kimono 5y ago
I'll say as someone who leans more towards Rust, and its community, in this somewhat manufactured debate -- I think it's pretty hard not to be a little prickly when most of the criticism amounts to "I hate the hype!" or "I don't like change!" My opinion has always been: Be Confident Enough to Allow Others to Disagree. Some in the Rust community sometimes have a problem with this, but, my God, it's not as if the arguments against Rust are very good, or as if people don't love to troll Rust, like the parent to your comment. Most criticisms are embarrassingly flimsy.
- Yoric 5y ago
  (to complete what mustache_kimono wrote) Which is not to say that Rust doesn't have a number of downsides. And I'm writing this as a Rust enthusiast and (very minor) contributor to the Rust compiler.
- qsdf38100 5y ago
  I hate the hype. I like honesty, pros vs cons. Rust community seems full of zealots and evangelists. Those people are very vocal about pros, and condescending. As soon as someone brings any con or isn’t convinced, they are just bad programmers, with bad arguments, and even « embarrassingly flimsy » criticism…
  - mustache_kimono 5y ago

dataangel 5y ago

If you read the full context, the misunderstanding comes from research not done by the Rust community. You just found a way to reinforce your own bias.

0xFEE1DEAD 5y ago

Every interaction I’ve had with the rust community was toxic in nature. Also for whatever reason all those „rust vs go“ articles are always coming from the rust corner. It’s like the rust community is frustrated about go success and they individually feel the need to attack their perceived competitor meanwhile the go community has no issue with any other language.

pyjarrett 5y ago
[deleted]
- kitkat_new 5y ago
  I don't get the logic of dropping a language you find great and you are productive in because of a few people
  - busterarm 5y ago
    You'll eventually have to cooperate with those people, whether it's on OSS or in the workplace. It's even worse when really senior figures in a community are also the source of the toxicity.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - sirwhinesalot 5y ago
    Those people will (potentially) be your future co-workers... So it is a valid concern. That said, I have not interacted with the Rust community and cannot make any comments in that regard. Language is pretty nice though.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - pyjarrett 5y ago

tashoecraft 5y ago

I think Rust has attracted a lot of people who don't really program in it often, but try to advocate for it. My experiences with the community have always been good, and they are consistently rated as having a really great community, but a growing community will always have issues.

ziml77 5y ago
I’m fairly certain this is the case. The people who seem to want everything rewritten in Rust are not necessarily also people who actually use the language. They likely just heard that it improves security and stability to use Rust over C. Would be similar to the people who bring up Ada as an alternative; the chances that they’ve actually tried it are minuscule. And to be very clear I’m not trying to say there is no overlap at all, but I don’t think you can call the Rust community toxic because of those people. (I wonder if the people who treat Rust like a religion realize how harmful their behavior is. I want Rust to be seen as a reasonable option, but that’s difficult when you have the evangelists scaring people away)

kitkat_new 5y ago

In my experience, the Rust community isn't toxic at all. To the contrary: when I started to explore Rust, it was very welcoming, helped finding the answer to all my nooby questions, which they probably heard a dozen times - despite having a lot of C++ and JS baggage

MisterTea 5y ago
You have a veery one sided perspective. Someone adopting/learning a language will be met with plenty of positivity and encouragement. The toxicity comes in to play once you post something critical of the language, even if it has merit.
- Yoric 5y ago
  So you're saying that people leaving comments on (I assume) blogs are typically less civil than people who take the time to work with newcomers and actually make the community work? That is certainly true, but for pretty much every community that I know, not limited to any programming language or technology.
tayo42 5y ago
Did you see what happened to the actix project. That was embarrassing
- Yoric 5y ago
  What happened to the actix project? Asking, because I use it daily :)
  - tayo42 5y ago
    It used to use a bunch of unsafe, someone decided that wasn't acceptable and it blew up into a whole thing where people started dog piling on the project and the maintainer. everyone got emotional, he eventually quit and gave up actix to someone else i think. pretty unnecessary and childish the way people acted towards him imo. a lot happened on reddit and github so it should be easy to find.

odiroot 5y ago

I don't know which community is toxic and wouldn't even risk using such strong term. Still, I have to say, it's really weird to see (last few months) everything being rewritten into Rust, just for the sake of pride(?). Haven't we learned anything from the NodeJS craze?

josephcsible 5y ago
> just for the sake of pride(?). It's to prevent all memory safety bugs.
- kangalioo 5y ago
  Partly true, but this doesn't apply to many rewritten tools, like cat or ls where memory safety bugs are tolerable
  - ansible 5y ago
    Well, I don't know about the cat command (though that _is_ appropriate for something like the Redox OS, which aspires to be a pure-Rust desktop operating system). But there is a broad-based desire to rewrite libraries in Rust for a couple (IMHO valid) reasons. One is the API. While it is possible to have a nice and idiomatic Rust API to a C library, it will often be nicer to use when it is designed from the ground-up in Rust. Traits, interfaces, etc. It is also often desirable to avoid C when cross-compiling (such as for embedded systems), as that is generally a hassle to set up and get working seamlessly.
  - detaro 5y ago
    Doesn't sound like things where you'd want bugs either. But also the rewrites for this kind of thing are usually not that "serious". A few people do it because they can or because they think it's interesting, but it's not like there are large pushes to replace such tools (E.g. there's been "lets rewrite basic tools in Go" projects too, and nobody is surprised that they aren't in widespread use"). The winners usually are not in that category, but tools that stand alone.
  - 5y ago

lnxg33k1 5y ago

To some extent I agree with you, I don't like the rust community generically, as I feel the toxicity too, but I mean the language and the offering of a fast but easy and checked platform to be are still good enough to let me just ignore them, I mean on IRC you always find people who are going to be bad, and people who will just help, and who cares about those who are bad, I guess just feel a few seconds of pity for them and move on

Yoric 5y ago
Out of curiosity, where did you see any toxicity? I'm both on the Rust forums and on the Rust Matrix community and I haven't seen anything toxic at all. Everything I've seen that looked like it could become toxic was handled gently by someone with a bit of seniority.

burnished 5y ago

Its weird, because the negative stuff I see around the Rust community is posts like this with name calling or histrionics, and the positive stuff is like 'thoughtful post mortem about why Rust compile times are so bad (but are improving)'.

Yoric 5y ago

Really? I've never found a community as nice as the Rust one. Where did you ask?