3 ms·

It's really weird. I keep seeing claims that Rust users are insufferable and claim that Rust protects against everything. But, as someone who has started using

by Yoric 4y ago

It's really weird. I keep seeing claims that Rust users are insufferable and claim that Rust protects against everything. But, as someone who has started using Rust around 0.4, I have never seen these insufferable users. I imagine that they lurk on some communities?

lifthrasiir 4y ago
I believe it boils down to hasty generalization, where you only recall (or are aware of) a few particularly noisy Rust users and take them as a representative of all Rust users. This kind of stereotype is unfortunately very hard to break.
3a2d29 4y ago
Okay, just to fact check this. I am a fan of Rust, but pretending there aren't these aggressive rust users is a bit putting your head in the sand. Like any language that has very cool features, there are people that take that tool as not a tool but a religion. You can even look in my comment history and see people arguing with me when I say I was a rust fan, but memory safety isn't a requirement in some areas of programming. One person made it there mission to convince me that can't possibly be the case and in (in my example of video games) that any memory bug crashes and game and will make users quit and leave.
- maxbond 4y ago
  I, too, have not encountered these toxic Rust fanboys. I don't believe my head is in the sand. I do regularly see people degrading Rust and it's community, and so am convinced these toxic Rust fanboys are largely a myth based on uncharitable interpretations of otherwise reasonable statements. I think people often read "I advocate for the deprecation of all C/C++ codebases" into the statement "Rust is a 'safe' language, for a certain meaning of that term," but I don't think it's actually common to advocate for such a deprecation outside of security-critical applications. I feel like it's a defensive reaction, that people feel like Rust is seeking to obviate arcane skills they've built over the course of their careers. Which I don't think is true, I think there will always be a need for such skills and that Rust has no mission to disrupt other language communities, but I can understand the reaction. > You can even look in my comment history Is this the thread you're referring to? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32878868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32878868 Because I genuinely don't see what you're talking about. No one seems to "make it their mission" and no one seems to be arguing for Rust in particular, as much as this category of languages.
  - moldavi 4y ago
    I've seen both sides of this, as a Rust user and as a Go user. Rust users are generally friendly to one another, and to people who are interested in Rust. Hoever, some Rust users are toxic when talking to people outside the community or to people who disagree. That's why a lot of us (in the Rust community) don't notice it; we spend most of the time inside our own community talking to each other and being friendly to each other. This is a trait common to any bubble or insular community whether it be about politics, religion, economics, or whatever. It's fairly easy to recognize once you get in the habit of dis-identifying with your own side. There's also a phenomenon in human psychology where we tend to forgive "our side's" misbehavior, presumably because it's in service to a higher ideal and therefore forgivable. It's the difference between "passionately spreading the good word" and "aggressive evangelism", two views of the same action. After learning about this I've even seen it in myself, though hopefully I've learned to counteract it a bit. Note that this isn't unique to Rust, other languages have this too to an extent. It's something I really hope we can leave behind, because it's hurting an otherwise beneficial message that Rust can bring a new tradeoff that is favorable for a lot of situations.
    - lifthrasiir 4y ago
      > Hoever, some Rust users are toxic when talking to people outside the community or to people who disagree. I'm not even sure if this is the case. I have seen enough toxic Rust users, but at least in my experience they rarely overlap with who are active in the community. This suggests that they are experiencing typical newcomer syndrome, comparable to Haskell newcomers' urge to write a monad tutorial, and also explains that why a disproportional number of non-Rust users observe toxic Rust users---if you are a Rust user but don't preach about Rust everywhere, how can others tell if you are indeed a Rust user? :-)
    - Yoric 4y ago
      Fair enough.
  - 3a2d29 4y ago
    No I am not referring to that thread. I am referring to the thread further down where someone compares using a memory unsafe language to an illegal activity. If you need an example of the rust community being toxic, I give you https://github.com/actix/actix-web https://github.com/actix/actix-web Look up the history and realize they bullied an open source project leader into leaving open source for good.

by Yoric 4y ago

lifthrasiir 4y ago

I believe it boils down to hasty generalization, where you only recall (or are aware of) a few particularly noisy Rust users and take them as a representative of all Rust users. This kind of stereotype is unfortunately very hard to break.

3a2d29 4y ago

Okay, just to fact check this. I am a fan of Rust, but pretending there aren't these aggressive rust users is a bit putting your head in the sand. Like any language that has very cool features, there are people that take that tool as not a tool but a religion. You can even look in my comment history and see people arguing with me when I say I was a rust fan, but memory safety isn't a requirement in some areas of programming. One person made it there mission to convince me that can't possibly be the case and in (in my example of video games) that any memory bug crashes and game and will make users quit and leave.

maxbond 4y ago
I, too, have not encountered these toxic Rust fanboys. I don't believe my head is in the sand. I do regularly see people degrading Rust and it's community, and so am convinced these toxic Rust fanboys are largely a myth based on uncharitable interpretations of otherwise reasonable statements. I think people often read "I advocate for the deprecation of all C/C++ codebases" into the statement "Rust is a 'safe' language, for a certain meaning of that term," but I don't think it's actually common to advocate for such a deprecation outside of security-critical applications. I feel like it's a defensive reaction, that people feel like Rust is seeking to obviate arcane skills they've built over the course of their careers. Which I don't think is true, I think there will always be a need for such skills and that Rust has no mission to disrupt other language communities, but I can understand the reaction. > You can even look in my comment history Is this the thread you're referring to? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32878868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32878868 Because I genuinely don't see what you're talking about. No one seems to "make it their mission" and no one seems to be arguing for Rust in particular, as much as this category of languages.
- moldavi 4y ago
  I've seen both sides of this, as a Rust user and as a Go user. Rust users are generally friendly to one another, and to people who are interested in Rust. Hoever, some Rust users are toxic when talking to people outside the community or to people who disagree. That's why a lot of us (in the Rust community) don't notice it; we spend most of the time inside our own community talking to each other and being friendly to each other. This is a trait common to any bubble or insular community whether it be about politics, religion, economics, or whatever. It's fairly easy to recognize once you get in the habit of dis-identifying with your own side. There's also a phenomenon in human psychology where we tend to forgive "our side's" misbehavior, presumably because it's in service to a higher ideal and therefore forgivable. It's the difference between "passionately spreading the good word" and "aggressive evangelism", two views of the same action. After learning about this I've even seen it in myself, though hopefully I've learned to counteract it a bit. Note that this isn't unique to Rust, other languages have this too to an extent. It's something I really hope we can leave behind, because it's hurting an otherwise beneficial message that Rust can bring a new tradeoff that is favorable for a lot of situations.
  - lifthrasiir 4y ago
    > Hoever, some Rust users are toxic when talking to people outside the community or to people who disagree. I'm not even sure if this is the case. I have seen enough toxic Rust users, but at least in my experience they rarely overlap with who are active in the community. This suggests that they are experiencing typical newcomer syndrome, comparable to Haskell newcomers' urge to write a monad tutorial, and also explains that why a disproportional number of non-Rust users observe toxic Rust users---if you are a Rust user but don't preach about Rust everywhere, how can others tell if you are indeed a Rust user? :-)
  - Yoric 4y ago
    Fair enough.
- 3a2d29 4y ago
  No I am not referring to that thread. I am referring to the thread further down where someone compares using a memory unsafe language to an illegal activity. If you need an example of the rust community being toxic, I give you https://github.com/actix/actix-web https://github.com/actix/actix-web Look up the history and realize they bullied an open source project leader into leaving open source for good.