26 ms·

The title is a little underwhelming, but this is a very good discussion of potential designs around async streams/iterators in Rust. Definitely worth a read.

xpe 3y ago
Yes. Also, it is yet another wonderful example of a detailed, thoughtful analysis that is civil and constructive.
- noelwelsh 3y ago
  Eh. IMO their writing would be so much better if they applied the inverted pyramid[1]. This piece takes 3 paragraphs to get the point of the post. As someone who is interested in Rust, but not sufficiently interested to get into the weeds of every design decision, it makes for frustrating reading. [1]: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journalism_and_journalistic_writing/the_inverted_pyramid.html https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journali...
  - xpe 3y ago
    > This piece takes 3 paragraphs to get the point of the post. I'm not following at all. I'm curious: what do you think the "point of the post" is? Here is the first sentence: > In my previous post, the single best thing the Rust project could do for users is stabilize AsyncIterator. This is indeed the central point of the post. The rest of it explains the why.
    - noelwelsh 3y ago
      That sentence gives no indication it is the main point of the post. It refers to a prior post and nowhere does it say anything about the current post. Even if the main point is indeed "the single best thing the Rust project could do for users is stabilize AsyncIterator" this sentence does not help reader understand this. In the third paragraph it makes three points: 1. This post is rebuttal to another post 2. This post argues in favour of keeping poll_next 3. This post argues that AsyncIterator should be stablized now This is the first point in the post in which it makes statements about the content of the post, and what I take to be the main points of the post.
      - xpe 3y ago
        All good points. Perhaps you could add yourself as an "editor hook" into a publishing process for technical content. :P
        noelwelsh 3y ago
        Heh. Thanks. I'm not sure I'd want to do that but I appreciate the implied compliment. :-)
  - xpe 3y ago
    Welcome to another holy war. :) Many people, including myself, loathe the inverted pyramid style. [1] [2] I think most people can agree on these points: we want writing structured in way we can skim _and_ dive into. We all probably agree that using topic sentences, logical organization, headings, structure, and transitions are important. Reasonable people can disagree on the order in which information is presented. The author has a tough job: striving to know the audience and crafting words suitably. For technical writing, I prefer a logical order that educates and builds logically. Give me that. I don't want to have to rearrange whatever "importance ordering" an inverted-pyramid-loving author might construct. Perhaps the core of my perspective is a deeper claim: an author must truly embrace a kind of humility and ignorance. (1) Humility that readers a skim a lot. Most of the author's words may get less than a glance. Oh well. (2) Ignorance because the author has very little grasp of their audience's knowledge graphs: what I know or don't, what I'm interested in, or what I think is pivotal. So what to do? Find some kind of conceptual organization that does not fall apart when confronted with empirical variation. Now, I want to vent just a little more. I really detest journalism pieces that rearrange stories in ways that make it really hard to build up a mental model of what is happening. Of course, I will grant this style can be fun for fiction and dramatization. [1] https://redpenofdoom.com/2012/01/21/why-the-inverted-pyramid-must-die/ https://redpenofdoom.com/2012/01/21/why-the-inverted-pyramid... [2] https://johnkrolldigital.com/2014/09/death-inverted-pyramid-life-alternative-story-forms/ https://johnkrolldigital.com/2014/09/death-inverted-pyramid-...
    - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
      At the beginning Boats showed two different traits, for poll and async. They re-itersted their argumentation for poll after that, but just seeing those two clearly said traits is basically all the background primer a dev should need to begin drawing their own conclusions & evaluating the choices here. Even if you don't fully know rust, it should be possible to see a couple various members emerging from this. Thank you for your vehement defense; I agree so strongly & it is so great to hear a good defense against imo bad watering down & adulterating. I didn't need or want to be hit over the lead with mass-media journalism. In my view, reasonable coders should be able to take a stab at interpreting at least the basics of what is in the table themselves from that well-illustrated starting place. Then let WithoutBoats re-argue why on one direction. Which they do excellently, with great framing, by talking about state machines. Which should also be graspable.

xpe 3y ago

Yes. Also, it is yet another wonderful example of a detailed, thoughtful analysis that is civil and constructive.

noelwelsh 3y ago
Eh. IMO their writing would be so much better if they applied the inverted pyramid[1]. This piece takes 3 paragraphs to get the point of the post. As someone who is interested in Rust, but not sufficiently interested to get into the weeds of every design decision, it makes for frustrating reading. [1]: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journalism_and_journalistic_writing/the_inverted_pyramid.html https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journali...
- xpe 3y ago
  > This piece takes 3 paragraphs to get the point of the post. I'm not following at all. I'm curious: what do you think the "point of the post" is? Here is the first sentence: > In my previous post, the single best thing the Rust project could do for users is stabilize AsyncIterator. This is indeed the central point of the post. The rest of it explains the why.
  - noelwelsh 3y ago
    That sentence gives no indication it is the main point of the post. It refers to a prior post and nowhere does it say anything about the current post. Even if the main point is indeed "the single best thing the Rust project could do for users is stabilize AsyncIterator" this sentence does not help reader understand this. In the third paragraph it makes three points: 1. This post is rebuttal to another post 2. This post argues in favour of keeping poll_next 3. This post argues that AsyncIterator should be stablized now This is the first point in the post in which it makes statements about the content of the post, and what I take to be the main points of the post.
    - xpe 3y ago
      All good points. Perhaps you could add yourself as an "editor hook" into a publishing process for technical content. :P
      - noelwelsh 3y ago
        Heh. Thanks. I'm not sure I'd want to do that but I appreciate the implied compliment. :-)
- xpe 3y ago
  Welcome to another holy war. :) Many people, including myself, loathe the inverted pyramid style. [1] [2] I think most people can agree on these points: we want writing structured in way we can skim _and_ dive into. We all probably agree that using topic sentences, logical organization, headings, structure, and transitions are important. Reasonable people can disagree on the order in which information is presented. The author has a tough job: striving to know the audience and crafting words suitably. For technical writing, I prefer a logical order that educates and builds logically. Give me that. I don't want to have to rearrange whatever "importance ordering" an inverted-pyramid-loving author might construct. Perhaps the core of my perspective is a deeper claim: an author must truly embrace a kind of humility and ignorance. (1) Humility that readers a skim a lot. Most of the author's words may get less than a glance. Oh well. (2) Ignorance because the author has very little grasp of their audience's knowledge graphs: what I know or don't, what I'm interested in, or what I think is pivotal. So what to do? Find some kind of conceptual organization that does not fall apart when confronted with empirical variation. Now, I want to vent just a little more. I really detest journalism pieces that rearrange stories in ways that make it really hard to build up a mental model of what is happening. Of course, I will grant this style can be fun for fiction and dramatization. [1] https://redpenofdoom.com/2012/01/21/why-the-inverted-pyramid-must-die/ https://redpenofdoom.com/2012/01/21/why-the-inverted-pyramid... [2] https://johnkrolldigital.com/2014/09/death-inverted-pyramid-life-alternative-story-forms/ https://johnkrolldigital.com/2014/09/death-inverted-pyramid-...
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    At the beginning Boats showed two different traits, for poll and async. They re-itersted their argumentation for poll after that, but just seeing those two clearly said traits is basically all the background primer a dev should need to begin drawing their own conclusions & evaluating the choices here. Even if you don't fully know rust, it should be possible to see a couple various members emerging from this. Thank you for your vehement defense; I agree so strongly & it is so great to hear a good defense against imo bad watering down & adulterating. I didn't need or want to be hit over the lead with mass-media journalism. In my view, reasonable coders should be able to take a stab at interpreting at least the basics of what is in the table themselves from that well-illustrated starting place. Then let WithoutBoats re-argue why on one direction. Which they do excellently, with great framing, by talking about state machines. Which should also be graspable.