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That's essentially the problem with any technology, or community around said technology, that's primed against some target they want to replace. It has kept me

That's essentially the problem with any technology, or community around said technology, that's primed against some target they want to replace. It has kept me away from Rust for years. If its fans weren't such fanboys for disruptive activity like rewriting things in Rust for the fuck of it, I might look closer into it. But considering where it came from and their politics, it doesn't seem like Rust is actually for everyone. Its angle of picking on C is also rich. If C is so bad, why has no major language supplanted it or C++? Anything with high importance on performance is written in low level languages, unconcerned with pushing a narrative or making BS 'more inclusive' which is really another view on affirmative action. My identity alone makes me unfit for the project.

mike_hock 3y ago
> If C is so bad, why has no major language supplanted it or C++? Because no one, not even Rust, aims for feature parity with C (except on the language level).
jcalvinowens 3y ago
> or community around said technology, that's primed against some target they want to replace. It's a vocal minority of the community, in my experience. Most people I've personally met who are passionate about Rust have a much more reasonable attitude about the whole thing, and see it as moving the needle in the right direction rather than a fully formed solution. It also really is interesting: obviously it's not the panacea it is sometimes made out to be, but it truly does eliminate a class of error. I admit to a bit of stubbornness myself, but I'm trying to work with it more.
JohnFen 3y ago
> It has kept me away from Rust for years. Yes. The Rust community is what has kept me away from Rust for a long, long time. Now I'm learning Rust because it may become an important skill to have, but it's despite the community. They're very hard to put up with.
Georgelemental 3y ago
> But considering where it came from and their politics > unconcerned with pushing a narrative or making BS 'more inclusive' which is really another view on affirmative action For what it's worth: I am conservative, right-wing, as opposed to "affirmative action" as it is possible to be—and I love Rust. Don't judge the language by the politics of a tiny section of its community, judge it on the technical merits.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  I judge things holistically. Ignore the community and you ignore the future of that tech. Ignore the tech and you miss some features. If others want to delude themselves by ignoring half the picture, more power to them.
vacuity 3y ago
> If C is so bad, why has no major language supplanted it or C++? I think a big reason is the massive codebases with legacy practices that no one has the time or money to fix or rewrite. But there are plenty of companies using newer languages for newer products, Go and Rust being prime examples. As to your points about the Rust community, there are some people who make it a religious thing (although Rust isn't especially abnormal in this regard; there are fanatics everywhere), but I think you're exaggerating.
coldtea 3y ago
>Its angle of picking on C is also rich. If C is so bad, why has no major language supplanted it or C++? Because the assumption "If some thing/technology was bad it would surely would have been supplanted" is wrong to begin with. There are lots of reasons things (customs/technologies/even politicians) stick around, and sticking around is not necessarily proof they aren't bad. Once a language has been entrenched (and it doesn't have to be great: just good for its time, or having advantages like being free to implement when competitors costed money or had to be licenced) it's very difficult to migrate countless very critical infrastructure. It's also very difficult to coordinate a huge industry in adopting a new language - there's the cost of retraining, the uncertainty on whether it will catch on and be worth the investment, the cost of the migrating existing stuff (or the cost of not migrating it, and having to deal with both the old and new language in your codebase). It's also difficult to change language and tooling vendors, to make sure the new language has as mature tooling, that the libs you need are available for it (or you have to deal with wrapping and calling across languages and dealing with a mixed codebase) and so on. So any replacing is slow. And if any language, aside of C++ which in many domains has eclipsed C, shows signs to replace C that would be Rust: it has a maturing and fast implementation, it has an increasing number of libs, it has major investment and adoption from big name companies, and has increased vendor support (not to mention IntelliJ making an IDE for it, always a sign of a language doing well, and unheard of for any C-replacent-wannabes until Rust to reach this level of success). And the very thing you complain about "disruptive activity like rewriting things in Rust" is actually part of what is needed for that eventual replacement. >Anything with high importance on performance is written in low level languages Increasingly it's written in Rust, even in the bigger of FAANG companies. Fuchsia OS from Google, for example, critical infrastructure in Google, Cloudflare, Apple: "Following a very successful first foray into Rust we are migrating an established codebase from C to Rust, and building new functionality primarily in Rust", MS "rewriting core Windows code in memory-safe Rust" and others. >My identity alone makes me unfit for the project Don't let the door hit you on your way out.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  How inclusive of you, lol.

mike_hock 3y ago

> If C is so bad, why has no major language supplanted it or C++? Because no one, not even Rust, aims for feature parity with C (except on the language level).

jcalvinowens 3y ago

> or community around said technology, that's primed against some target they want to replace. It's a vocal minority of the community, in my experience. Most people I've personally met who are passionate about Rust have a much more reasonable attitude about the whole thing, and see it as moving the needle in the right direction rather than a fully formed solution. It also really is interesting: obviously it's not the panacea it is sometimes made out to be, but it truly does eliminate a class of error. I admit to a bit of stubbornness myself, but I'm trying to work with it more.

JohnFen 3y ago

> It has kept me away from Rust for years. Yes. The Rust community is what has kept me away from Rust for a long, long time. Now I'm learning Rust because it may become an important skill to have, but it's despite the community. They're very hard to put up with.

Georgelemental 3y ago

> But considering where it came from and their politics > unconcerned with pushing a narrative or making BS 'more inclusive' which is really another view on affirmative action For what it's worth: I am conservative, right-wing, as opposed to "affirmative action" as it is possible to be—and I love Rust. Don't judge the language by the politics of a tiny section of its community, judge it on the technical merits.

zlg_codes 3y ago
I judge things holistically. Ignore the community and you ignore the future of that tech. Ignore the tech and you miss some features. If others want to delude themselves by ignoring half the picture, more power to them.

vacuity 3y ago

> If C is so bad, why has no major language supplanted it or C++? I think a big reason is the massive codebases with legacy practices that no one has the time or money to fix or rewrite. But there are plenty of companies using newer languages for newer products, Go and Rust being prime examples. As to your points about the Rust community, there are some people who make it a religious thing (although Rust isn't especially abnormal in this regard; there are fanatics everywhere), but I think you're exaggerating.

coldtea 3y ago

>Its angle of picking on C is also rich. If C is so bad, why has no major language supplanted it or C++? Because the assumption "If some thing/technology was bad it would surely would have been supplanted" is wrong to begin with. There are lots of reasons things (customs/technologies/even politicians) stick around, and sticking around is not necessarily proof they aren't bad. Once a language has been entrenched (and it doesn't have to be great: just good for its time, or having advantages like being free to implement when competitors costed money or had to be licenced) it's very difficult to migrate countless very critical infrastructure. It's also very difficult to coordinate a huge industry in adopting a new language - there's the cost of retraining, the uncertainty on whether it will catch on and be worth the investment, the cost of the migrating existing stuff (or the cost of not migrating it, and having to deal with both the old and new language in your codebase). It's also difficult to change language and tooling vendors, to make sure the new language has as mature tooling, that the libs you need are available for it (or you have to deal with wrapping and calling across languages and dealing with a mixed codebase) and so on. So any replacing is slow. And if any language, aside of C++ which in many domains has eclipsed C, shows signs to replace C that would be Rust: it has a maturing and fast implementation, it has an increasing number of libs, it has major investment and adoption from big name companies, and has increased vendor support (not to mention IntelliJ making an IDE for it, always a sign of a language doing well, and unheard of for any C-replacent-wannabes until Rust to reach this level of success). And the very thing you complain about "disruptive activity like rewriting things in Rust" is actually part of what is needed for that eventual replacement. >Anything with high importance on performance is written in low level languages Increasingly it's written in Rust, even in the bigger of FAANG companies. Fuchsia OS from Google, for example, critical infrastructure in Google, Cloudflare, Apple: "Following a very successful first foray into Rust we are migrating an established codebase from C to Rust, and building new functionality primarily in Rust", MS "rewriting core Windows code in memory-safe Rust" and others. >My identity alone makes me unfit for the project Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

zlg_codes 3y ago
How inclusive of you, lol.