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A totally unscientific observation: Do Rust projects have a tenancy of becoming abandoned maybe due to the complexity of the language since it's hard to contri

A totally unscientific observation: Do Rust projects have a tenancy of becoming abandoned maybe due to the complexity of the language since it's hard to contribute? I've seen enough cases on this that prompted me to ask this.

avgcorrection 4y ago
You’ve seen enough cases of what? People saying that it’s too hard to contribute?
- ducktective 4y ago
  No, cool projects in Github that are written in Rust but abandoned after some time.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    Can't this be explained simply by rust being a new and trendy language with a lot of young developers experimenting while they improve their skills?
  - wtetzner 4y ago
    There are tons of those in every language. You just see a lot them in Rust because people are excited to submit Rust projects to HN.
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    Seems that you’ve skipped a bunch of steps in order to come up with your pet theory, then. 1. Rust projects become abandoned (observed fact) 2. Language complexity (?) 3. Hard to contribute (?) I guess that’s why you were kind of defensive when you brought it up.
Lapz 4y ago
No , not really a lot of the time people are trying to tackle problems that have taken years to solve in other languages which isn’t easy and is why you see stuff abandoned. This project is also pretty similar to https://github.com/antoyo/relm https://github.com/antoyo/relm which is an active project.
zorr 4y ago
Instead of language complexity I think it's a result of the specific positioning of the Rust language as a more safe successor to C/C++. Rewrite-in-Rust is a thing. Not only for applications but also for foundational libraries (crypto, http, async, etc). The ecosystem is still young with lots of gaps and many devs are experimenting with new approaches to fill those gaps. More new projects -> more abandoned projects.
Macha 4y ago
I think we're just early enough in the language that the established libraries and their mechanisms for ensuring continuity just aren't there in many areas. Other languages had similar teething problems, just ask anyone with applications in Zope, WebPy, Pylons, Merb, JS frameworks not named React, EJB, MFC, etc.
- neverminder 4y ago
  "early enough in the language" is really worrying at this point. I was there, at Mozilla London office in 2015 15th of May when Rust 1.0 was launched. That was 7 years ago. If you look at the history of languages, 7 years is a point of maturity for those that took off. I really hope Rust doesn't flame out like Scala did.
  - pdimitar 4y ago
    What makes you think it will flame out?
  - Macha 4y ago
    Again though, EJB, AngularJS, Backbone, Pylons were all things in languages that were widely accepted at the times those frameworks were in vogue yet still ran out of steam. Yet Java, JavaScript and Python are still here
    - DeathArrow 4y ago
      And C#, C++, C.
  - ntoskrnl 4y ago
    For comparison, Python 1.0 was released in 1994. 7 years later in 2001, Python 2.2 was released. I don't think many of today's popular Python packages date back that far.
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > For comparison, Python 1.0 was released in 1994. 7 years later in 2001, Python 2.2 was released. I don't think many of today's popular Python packages date back that far. Python is an outlier though; it was mostly ignored until very suddenly it took off starting around the time Jupyter released. Most (including I) think it took off due to how easy and accessible it was back then, syntax-wise. You could pick it up and be slightly productive in a day, be extremely productive in a week and essentially master it in a month. Go is following a similar trajectory: productive contributor in a week, master in a month. Rust is in the opposite direction: too many people simply give up on it, those that persevere report months before any reasonable productivity.
jjtheblunt 4y ago
typo : tenancy -> tendency
Taywee 4y ago
In my personal experience, I make and abandon a ton of Rust projects because it's such a fun language, and I really enjoy starting new projects in it. I get an idea, get excited about how I can model the types and relationships in Rust, then throw together an early prototype, then drop it when I've had my fun and before it turns into a job. Other languages don't have as fun a type system, so I feel bogged down and lose motivation before I even start writing code. I don't know how many others this applies to, but I have a lot of abandoned Rust projects because if it wasn't in Rust, I never would have even started writing them down before abandoning them.
nicoburns 4y ago
I don't think Rust projects get abandoned any more than projects in other languages. I think it's just that you see them more because people are excited about Rust so they share projects even if they're abandoned.
rvz 4y ago
Depends on the use case. If it is a GUI library project then yes.
pornel 4y ago
Quite the opposite in this case: https://twitter.com/bodil/status/1520404060138094592 https://twitter.com/bodil/status/1520404060138094592 The author of this crate enjoys advanced type systems, and can't wait for Rust to add what you'd call "more complexity" in the form of higher-kinded types, generic associated types, and specialization (some of these features are available in an unfinished/experimental form in the nightly compiler, but may not become part of the language anytime soon, if ever).

avgcorrection 4y ago

You’ve seen enough cases of what? People saying that it’s too hard to contribute?

ducktective 4y ago
No, cool projects in Github that are written in Rust but abandoned after some time.
- pengaru 4y ago
  Can't this be explained simply by rust being a new and trendy language with a lot of young developers experimenting while they improve their skills?
- wtetzner 4y ago
  There are tons of those in every language. You just see a lot them in Rust because people are excited to submit Rust projects to HN.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  Seems that you’ve skipped a bunch of steps in order to come up with your pet theory, then. 1. Rust projects become abandoned (observed fact) 2. Language complexity (?) 3. Hard to contribute (?) I guess that’s why you were kind of defensive when you brought it up.

Lapz 4y ago

No , not really a lot of the time people are trying to tackle problems that have taken years to solve in other languages which isn’t easy and is why you see stuff abandoned. This project is also pretty similar to https://github.com/antoyo/relm https://github.com/antoyo/relm which is an active project.

zorr 4y ago

Instead of language complexity I think it's a result of the specific positioning of the Rust language as a more safe successor to C/C++. Rewrite-in-Rust is a thing. Not only for applications but also for foundational libraries (crypto, http, async, etc). The ecosystem is still young with lots of gaps and many devs are experimenting with new approaches to fill those gaps. More new projects -> more abandoned projects.

Macha 4y ago

I think we're just early enough in the language that the established libraries and their mechanisms for ensuring continuity just aren't there in many areas. Other languages had similar teething problems, just ask anyone with applications in Zope, WebPy, Pylons, Merb, JS frameworks not named React, EJB, MFC, etc.

neverminder 4y ago
"early enough in the language" is really worrying at this point. I was there, at Mozilla London office in 2015 15th of May when Rust 1.0 was launched. That was 7 years ago. If you look at the history of languages, 7 years is a point of maturity for those that took off. I really hope Rust doesn't flame out like Scala did.
- pdimitar 4y ago
  What makes you think it will flame out?
- Macha 4y ago
  Again though, EJB, AngularJS, Backbone, Pylons were all things in languages that were widely accepted at the times those frameworks were in vogue yet still ran out of steam. Yet Java, JavaScript and Python are still here
  - DeathArrow 4y ago
    And C#, C++, C.
- ntoskrnl 4y ago
  For comparison, Python 1.0 was released in 1994. 7 years later in 2001, Python 2.2 was released. I don't think many of today's popular Python packages date back that far.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > For comparison, Python 1.0 was released in 1994. 7 years later in 2001, Python 2.2 was released. I don't think many of today's popular Python packages date back that far. Python is an outlier though; it was mostly ignored until very suddenly it took off starting around the time Jupyter released. Most (including I) think it took off due to how easy and accessible it was back then, syntax-wise. You could pick it up and be slightly productive in a day, be extremely productive in a week and essentially master it in a month. Go is following a similar trajectory: productive contributor in a week, master in a month. Rust is in the opposite direction: too many people simply give up on it, those that persevere report months before any reasonable productivity.

jjtheblunt 4y ago

typo : tenancy -> tendency

Taywee 4y ago

In my personal experience, I make and abandon a ton of Rust projects because it's such a fun language, and I really enjoy starting new projects in it. I get an idea, get excited about how I can model the types and relationships in Rust, then throw together an early prototype, then drop it when I've had my fun and before it turns into a job. Other languages don't have as fun a type system, so I feel bogged down and lose motivation before I even start writing code. I don't know how many others this applies to, but I have a lot of abandoned Rust projects because if it wasn't in Rust, I never would have even started writing them down before abandoning them.

nicoburns 4y ago

I don't think Rust projects get abandoned any more than projects in other languages. I think it's just that you see them more because people are excited about Rust so they share projects even if they're abandoned.

rvz 4y ago

Depends on the use case. If it is a GUI library project then yes.

pornel 4y ago

Quite the opposite in this case: https://twitter.com/bodil/status/1520404060138094592 https://twitter.com/bodil/status/1520404060138094592 The author of this crate enjoys advanced type systems, and can't wait for Rust to add what you'd call "more complexity" in the form of higher-kinded types, generic associated types, and specialization (some of these features are available in an unfinished/experimental form in the nightly compiler, but may not become part of the language anytime soon, if ever).