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I think it's pretty astounding that people are actually deciding not to learn a language because of a governance issue that has manifested as a conference speak
by insanitybit 3y ago
I think it's pretty astounding that people are actually deciding not to learn a language because of a governance issue that has manifested as a conference speaker being disrespected.
The rust leadership issues are just not things you have to think about as a rust developer. There isn't going to be a meaningful fork, there... just is nothing to worry about. The people who are invested in this sort of thing are discussing it, that does not have to be you.
- neilv 3y agoThat's not the only incident. And there's also patterns across decades of projects, sometimes even including some of the same lineage or influences, and we'd like to learn from the past. An individual Rust developer probably doesn't care about any of that, absolutely correct. But it can affect some Rust developers near-term in perceptible ways, and longer-term it will absolutely affect much more. Org dysfunction is often how empires fall, getting twisted along the way, and sometimes why they fail to become empires in the first place.
- insanitybit 3y agoJust about any language that I've paid attention to has had drama. Maybe there will be long term impact but, again, it's nothing that the average dev should be concerned with. In the same way that C++ drama over decades could maybe somewhat impact a company like Google that is massively invested in it, but otherwise everyone else is just... writing C++.
- neilv 3y agoEveryone who buys into a platform is impacted by where that platform goes. And where that platform goes is to a large extent determined by org dynamics (leadership, drama, etc.).
- insanitybit 3y agoI don't think there's any evidence to support the idea that dramatic events or small organizational issues (note that there are many rust teams that function fine) will drive platform direction. Every other language has survived plenty of drama.
- neilv 3y agoSurvivor bias. Most languages have disappeared or become fringe. And the ones that did survive have often been twisted, developed poorer communities than some others, etc.
- insanitybit 3y agoWhich languages have made it to the level of success that rust has achieved and then flamed out because of small organizational issues?
- cjbprime 3y agoElm seems like the best candidate?
- insanitybit 3y agoNot sure Elm ever made it close to where Rust is. Of FAANG, Netflix is the only one where I don't think there's any Rust, just for example. Microsoft is shipping Rust in Windows. Linux supports one language other than C and it's Rust. Elm was an interesting language but I don't think it ever saw anywhere near the same level of adoption by hobbyists nor companies.
- cjbprime 3y agoI agree, though that might be where the survivorship bias comes in -- it seems like Elm's ideas have been massively successful and I would say are now the most common way to produce webapps. But people choose to take the ideas while discarding the language, and that's where I suspect community mismanagement was a large cause.