5 ms·

Is it bad of me to say I really just don’t care? If he did the talk. If he did it as a keynote. If someone else is “leaving rust” because of it? It all seems

• junon 3y ago
  From my understanding the Rust team was involved and they sidestepped democratic processes put in place to make sure the Rust foundation doesn't kill itself with unchecked mismanagement essentially. The point is more that this sort of unilateral decision should never have been possible to make in the first place. It should have been discussed and voted on before the talk was downgraded. Perhaps that specific incident is inconsequential, sure. I think even the speaker agrees so. But the fact that this lapse in process could happen within the Rust foundation at all is a red flag for other, more language-specific dangers.
  • wokwokwok 3y ago
    How? Everything is done openly on https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs I mean, I hear you. I understand what you're saying, I just don't understand how you (or others) think this is related to the technical aspects of the language.
    • junon 3y ago
      Because the same people are involved, and they knowingly sidestepped these exact sorts of processes without care. It might not be important to you, but this seems like a red flag to many.
    • ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
      > Everything is done openly on https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs But the RFCs are written and reviewed by people. And they need to have the feeling that the work they do isn't useless because the one who actually decides is somebody else who hasn't been involved in the process at all until the very end. It's ok having somebody being able to veto stuff, but this must be known and communicated beforehand - "yes, that's ok for us, but $PERSON has the last word on this so we have to await his approval".
    • auggierose 3y ago
      If leadership acts so carelessly with regard to matters concerning a human being in such a shady and disrespecting manner, why would they act less careless with regard to technical matters? Will they just enforce their biased opinion, ignoring valid and generally accepted technical arguments? Rust leadership sounds a bit like the elite leadership of a communist state. I'd prefer an open dictatorship over that.
      • nindalf 3y ago
        Notable in this backlash that this happened Friday evening/Saturday morning. So many of whom you’re characterising as the “elite leadership of a communist state” might not have seen this yet. They need to coordinate, build consensus and speak with one voice. I expect that might take a couple of days so they might have a response by Wednesday or so. Also, my understanding is that the consensus among the committee was to invite and then one person broke that consensus. You’re characterising this as a careful, considered decision made by all of Rust project leadership but that might not be the case at all.
        • auggierose 3y ago
          No, I am not presenting this as a careful, considered decision. I was just responding why this incident could possibly also reflect on technical matters (not saying that it actually does). I have no clue what went on exactly. But clearly leadership somehow failed in this incident. Looking forward to hear more about how exactly this has happened.
          • nindalf 3y ago
            It’s possible to characterise anything as a leadership failure because the buck stops with them. But I don’t see what they could have done differently other than all being available on weekends to troubleshoot issues like this.
            • auggierose 3y ago
              If just one person inside leadership fails, that's also leadership failure. If that's the case, most likely the remaining leadership will distance itself from this soon enough.
• brokenkebaby 3y ago
  >Why people having emotions (eg. The person above, who does care) is somehow a bad thing? It's a bit of manipulation as nobody stated that having emotions is bad. Meanwhile, people leveraging unverifiable claims of bad feelings to hurt somebody is apparently ok... unless that somebody is you, of course.
• worrycue 3y ago
  > I really struggle to understand why: 1) I should care (I don’t, currently) It’s unprofessional I guess. For the sake of Rust’s future, it should probably get better stewardship. If you agree to let someone speak then you should honour it.
• underdeserver 3y ago
  People are literally calling it out. Nobody's obsessing. It seems to me that OP feels like he is forced out by this behavior. To be forced out of a project you put your heart and soul into over several years, that can hurt. Also the governance of the project is important if you want to invest in the ecosystem. These are the people who make the decisions for Rust. If you want to rely on Rust, you better trust them to make the right ones, and this here is (ostensibly) a strong example to the contrary.
• lakomen 3y ago
  It's called being an empathic human being
  • marginalia_nu 3y ago
    Part of empathy is realizing when someone is authentically upset, and telling that apart from when they are being cynically melodramatic. > I left because when I felt JeanHeyd's pain and disappointment at being mistreated and betrayed, my heart broke. I wept because of the cruelty. But I also wept because I helped create the system that could do this to someone. This shit does not come off as authentic even a little bit.
    • zozbot234 3y ago
      You're right, it's not authentic or to be taken at face value. But that doesn't mean that there's not some authentic meaning that's being clearly communicated here. Look beyond the surface message!
      • gilmore606 3y ago
        No, don't, because it's not good to normalize such manipulative ways of communicating.
    • junofan 3y ago
      I think he’s just calling somebody an asshole.
    • tux3 3y ago
      Keep in mind that the author is on the spectrum, and the way they process emotions might not be the way you process emotions. Different cultures, different thought processes, different feelings. I'd err on the side of believing people, unless and until they prove themselves to be insincere. Which is very much not the author's reputation, as far as I know. People can be melodramatic sincerely. There's no reason to look for cynicism here.
• mathfailure 3y ago
  [flagged]
• wadd1e 3y ago
  >It all seems so fabulously irrelevant Except (in my opinion) it's not, if the set of people responsible for the progress of the technology you(and mabye your company) are going to be using are able to make such terrible decisions, it opens doors for far worse on a scale where you will start to care(take a look at the code of conduct stuff(edit: I meant the trademark stuff); if they went ahead with it, which is very possible if they're willing to sidestep all ideas of democracy, then there would be some notable repercussions).
  • marcosdumay 3y ago
    It means that, like everything that started at Mozilla, Rust will have some uncomfortable growth phase and then mature at some group that may or may not be the original one. We can expect some mildly bad decisions on the language evolution. But it's very unlikely that this will open a niche for another language to replace Rust.
    • wadd1e 3y ago
      Only thing I can really see is mabye go/zig gaining more adoption but I don't think we're even close to that point yet, what's worrying is even discussing something like this happening in the first place. Ideally this sort of thing shouldn't even cross our minds.
      • notmypenguin 3y ago
        Go is garbage collected so it’s unsuitable for the domain. Rust isn’t going away, no matter how many social snafus the steerage folks create. I wish they would lay off the power tripper stuff, but that’s what you get at this level/size. Coming from where it’s coming from, it’s arguably going to be hammering itself out for awhile yet, while the world is already using it just fine… you may see splintered community though
• talkingtab 3y ago
  Cause and Effect. You say "Rust is great". Why? Because People who work together effectively created Rust. And people working together have created most of the other things that are great. So if you want Rust, better Rust or more Rusts, then you may want to care whether the Rust organization will continue to work together effectively. My 0.02 is that we live in a time where we are losing site of communities and focusing on individuals. Your comment appears to be an example of that. Human beings are adaptive and successful in general because they effectively work together. If you want to think about that idea, one of the things I've been pondering is how the Ukrainians have stood up to the vast power arrayed against them?
  • mwcampbell 3y ago
    Or maybe Rust is great because Graydon was (presumably still is) an exceptionally skilled language designer and implementor. An increased focus on individuals makes sense to me because advances in technology give individuals more power, and it makes sense to me to minimize the overhead of coordination by making the most of that power to accomplish greater things with fewer people.
    • bennettnate5 3y ago
      Did Graydon write the Rust analyzer? Did Graydon personally pen all of the documentation (let alone the books and tutorials) that contribute to Rust's usability? Rust is great primarily because it has a community of contributors that all work in various fields of the language to make it what it is. The sheer volume of work that needed to be done to get Rust to where it is today could not be shouldered on the backs of a small collection of skilled individuals; coordination and collaboration is essential for a project like Rust. You can find countless research papers out there that present a brilliant idea devised and implemented by a skilled individual that ultimately goes nowhere despite its merit. Skilled individuals still need community to expand their work to the scope that will allow the idea to really shine. (Note this is not meant to minimize Graydon's contributions to Rust's success, but to highlight the general principle that ideas require a community to grow into greatness)
• adave 3y ago
  I think being apathetic about it won't solve anything either. An expert leaving a is a big issue as that brings about the underlying rot in the committees way of handling bad or fool hardy behavior from a mob. You maybe should care a little given the flaws it exposes in their processes or lack of managing the human element.
  • pdimitar 3y ago
    > I think being apathetic about it won't solve anything either. How so? Me, a random Rust dev, can't ever make any difference in how is the foundation governed. But, if you are telling us that the Rust leadership will e.g. actively follow this very HN thread and base their policy on it then yeah, then I'd agree with you.
• monkeywork 3y ago
  You should care because this becomes more and more the reputation of the language and as it pushes more and more talented people away the staying power of the language (and its ability to be "great") begins to diminish. People don't need to be perfect, but if people are going to REPRESENT something (ie the Rust Language) they need to be better than the petty drama that the Rust team has been involved in over the last while.
  • kyrofa 3y ago
    This. I have avoided rust so far because I don't like the community around it and the reputation it's building. This type of drama really does effect the ecosystem.
  • quotemstr 3y ago
    As Rust the technology becomes increasingly important commercially, Rust the community will become more professional one way or another. Large companies want calm and predictable management of their core infrastructure. They have multiple levers, some overt, some less so, for getting it. Rust's leadership will either adopt professional standards of business conduct (as Linus did) or it will be replaced (like W3C was). There's too much riding on Rust now to leave its future up to emotion and chance.
    • mwcampbell 3y ago
      So what can we who use Rust, but don't have those levers of power, do to help accelerate this professionalization?
• rhaway84773 3y ago
  You cared enough to comment on it. Comments about how someone just doesn’t care about something is the worst kind of comment.
  • SantalBlush 3y ago
    I appreciated the comment, because I feel the same way.