9 ms·

Am I the only one who is getting tired of "It's X in rust" type projects? It's making me dislike the community. Rust is not a user feature, it's an implementat

Am I the only one who is getting tired of "It's X in rust" type projects? It's making me dislike the community. Rust is not a user feature, it's an implementation detail. <cue people telling me I should consider Rust a feature>

eviks 3y ago
<cue at least one complaint of this kind under almost any Rust-related project>
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  The fact that this happens should be food for thought for part of the rust community. Because the way I see it, if they keep this up, a few years from now, they could, other than some obscure linux kernel modules almost noone uses and a good grep-alternative, be well along what I lovingly call the "Haskell Route".
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    What exactly should the takeaway be? Stop making things in Rust because people on HN will complain?
    - imp0cat 3y ago
      No, don't stop. But it's an interesting observation, don't you think? Why is it that just by adding "... in Rust" you can almost guarantee that people will roll their eyes and think "oh, not another one". Other languages do not carry such stigma, why does Rust have such reputation?
      - sebzim4500 3y ago
        I don't know, but it certainly says more about the people rolling their eyes than it does about the people actually building things.
      - toastedwedge 3y ago
        Completely guessing, but the thought comes to mind that Rust was (still is? I don't keep up these days) portrayed as The C Killer. So to specify "written in Rust" was to imply "I wrote something low-level without C/C++" or "I rewrote Popular C Tool in Rust" in the name of memory safety. This is all wild speculation on my part, so please take it with a large grain of salt. I welcome alternative explanations or experiences.
        weebull 3y ago
        > Completely guessing, but the thought comes to mind that Rust was (still is? I don't keep up these days) portrayed as The C Killer. So to specify "written in Rust" was to imply "I wrote something low-level without C/C++" or "I rewrote Popular C Tool in Rust" in the name of memory safety. As the OP, this is a big part of it. Rust might be a great language, but people announcing they rewrote grep (for example) in rust doesn't mean they've done anything special. The rust language team did something special. The person making the announcement just took somebody else's idea and reimplemented it for very little reason. Great! You learnt enough to reinvent the wheel. Now do something useful.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    Who is "they"? Do you imagine all Rust devs as a hive mind?
    - usrbinbash 3y ago
      > for part of the rust community. part is the important term here.
      - pdimitar 3y ago
        I still don't see your original point. Sounds like you have an axe to grind. I don't see anything negative in saying "written in Rust" or "written in OCaml" or "written in Haskell" or anything else. Using a particular language signals a certain subset of qualities and broadcasting those helps people filter what they are interested in.
        imp0cat 3y ago
        It's only the Rust bit that seems to be problematic. I guess there is too much drama around that language?
        pdimitar 3y ago
        I never saw any drama. People have broadcasted that they rewrite stuff in Rust, yes, and that seems to have triggered an exaggerated annoyance response in many.
        imp0cat 3y ago
        Yes, but why? Why does Rust (or, more precisely, the "rewrite in Rust" meme) such negative connotation?
        pdimitar 3y ago
        I honestly have no clue and will only speculate. The people criticizing the "rewrite it in Rust" or "written in Rust" monikers always came across as grumpy curmudgeons to me. I never saw an actual good technical criticism. Also they might have made the mistake of judging a very big and heterogenous community by a few zealot loudmouths (and every community has those). Informed and objective people shouldn't judge like that but I think it reinforces a preconceived notion that they already have. The human brain can betray us like that. If you already dislike something, practically every criticism towards it, no matter how small, makes you immediately go: "A-ha! This thing is bad! I knew it!"
  - Twirrim 3y ago
    Almost every single project that makes it to the front page of HN tells you as part of the opening sentences what language it's in. For a good while it was "<thing>, (re)written in Go". There's nothing special or unique in the rust community about this, it's just what people in tech do. The type of complaining you're doing is also nothing new, because exactly the same occurs under those posts when it's the language de jour. A few years ago when it was all about Go, you could look in the HN comments and see people complaining exactly the same way about Go and the Go community.
timeon 3y ago
Stating the technology makes you dislike the community. >.> Why are you on HN?
theshrike79 3y ago
It's a marketing tactic, there is a non-insignificant people who will check out a project just because of Rust.
farresito 3y ago
> Rust is not a user feature, it's an implementation detail Sure, but keep in mind that in the case of open source software plenty of people will choose software written in their favorite language so that they can potentially contribute to it. Or simply because they feel more connected to something that is written in their favorite language. So I don't think it's completely irrelevant.
rowanG077 3y ago
Well memory safety is a user feature. So "X but in Rust" has merit if X is written in C or C++.
gnur 3y ago
It might not be a feature, but it is a selling point. It conveys that it was written relatively recently, is more likely to support modern features in the shell, runs reasonably fast and is reasonably portable. If it was written in JS or python I'd already start worrying about what package manager to install it with in which environment, installing it globally is an anti pattern but symlinking it to .local/bin might complicate it. So IMHO, the language something is written in is not just an implementation detail, it informs me in how well it will perform.
- weebull 3y ago
  It's a prompt. Writing anything for that purpose is code gardening, but hey it's in rust so I'm supposed to be excited? That, in essence is the problem "X in rust" normally means "I've written something of low value IN RUST. Gimmee upvotes". Come back when the project is interesting regardless of the language.
jpambrun 3y ago
I like that go and rust binaries are statically linked. This means that I can build an environment I like using these and bring them almost everywhere, wsl, Mac, Ubuntu, red hat, etc. For me, this is the feature of rust/go.
pdimitar 3y ago
It's not only though I don't understand why is this getting you "tired". Rust has memory safety built in (unless one goes VERY out of their way to nullify it) which to many, myself included, is a selling point. F.ex. I wouldn't be interested in the userland tools rewrite if they weren't in Rust. > Rust is not a user feature, it's an implementation detail. It is that, yes, but not only that. Again, memory safety. And as another poster pointed out -- statically linked binaries. That helps a lot with certain deployments. Also consider that HN might not be the place for you if mentioning implementation details are ticking you off. That's more or less how this forum started in the first place: people discussing implementation details.
PurpleRamen 3y ago
> Rust is not a user feature, it's an implementation detail. Rust is the new C. It communicates that something is fast, but also secure, and new or a modern reimplementation of something old. So, in that sense, is it a user feature because it has established itself in a way that tells the user some important details.
itishappy 3y ago
cntrl-f "rust" -> 2 results I think you might just be prejudiced. Do you have the same reaction to, say, SQLite? https://www.sqlite.org/index.html https://www.sqlite.org/index.html > SQLite is a C-language library that implements a small, fast, self-contained, high-reliability, full-featured, SQL database engine.
darthrupert 3y ago
I started thinking like that, but the general high quality and innovatio. of the various things rewritten in Rust has made me reconsider. I think it has become a significant user feature.
Zababa 3y ago
"X in Rust" to me mean that I won't have to fiddle with it when installing it and it'll work out of the box. This isn't unique to Rust, Go does this very well too. It'll also be reasonably fast, not just because of the language, but because the community likes performance. For example, a few years ago I tried the tldr command. It was in Node.js and unbearably slow. There was a Rust implementation, tealdeer, that was way faster.
KolenCh 3y ago
Am I the only one who is getting tired of comments complaining about people put “written in Rust” in the title? Lately every post having “written in Rust” has a comment like this. If you don’t care, ignore it. Why should it bother you so much?
a_random_canuck 3y ago
Speak for yourself. It makes me love the community. Rust’s memory safety definitely makes it a user feature.

eviks 3y ago

usrbinbash 3y ago
The fact that this happens should be food for thought for part of the rust community. Because the way I see it, if they keep this up, a few years from now, they could, other than some obscure linux kernel modules almost noone uses and a good grep-alternative, be well along what I lovingly call the "Haskell Route".
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  What exactly should the takeaway be? Stop making things in Rust because people on HN will complain?
  - imp0cat 3y ago
    No, don't stop. But it's an interesting observation, don't you think? Why is it that just by adding "... in Rust" you can almost guarantee that people will roll their eyes and think "oh, not another one". Other languages do not carry such stigma, why does Rust have such reputation?
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      I don't know, but it certainly says more about the people rolling their eyes than it does about the people actually building things.
    - toastedwedge 3y ago
      Completely guessing, but the thought comes to mind that Rust was (still is? I don't keep up these days) portrayed as The C Killer. So to specify "written in Rust" was to imply "I wrote something low-level without C/C++" or "I rewrote Popular C Tool in Rust" in the name of memory safety. This is all wild speculation on my part, so please take it with a large grain of salt. I welcome alternative explanations or experiences.
      - weebull 3y ago
        > Completely guessing, but the thought comes to mind that Rust was (still is? I don't keep up these days) portrayed as The C Killer. So to specify "written in Rust" was to imply "I wrote something low-level without C/C++" or "I rewrote Popular C Tool in Rust" in the name of memory safety. As the OP, this is a big part of it. Rust might be a great language, but people announcing they rewrote grep (for example) in rust doesn't mean they've done anything special. The rust language team did something special. The person making the announcement just took somebody else's idea and reimplemented it for very little reason. Great! You learnt enough to reinvent the wheel. Now do something useful.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  Who is "they"? Do you imagine all Rust devs as a hive mind?
  - usrbinbash 3y ago
    > for part of the rust community. part is the important term here.
    - pdimitar 3y ago
      I still don't see your original point. Sounds like you have an axe to grind. I don't see anything negative in saying "written in Rust" or "written in OCaml" or "written in Haskell" or anything else. Using a particular language signals a certain subset of qualities and broadcasting those helps people filter what they are interested in.
      - imp0cat 3y ago
        It's only the Rust bit that seems to be problematic. I guess there is too much drama around that language?
        pdimitar 3y ago
        I never saw any drama. People have broadcasted that they rewrite stuff in Rust, yes, and that seems to have triggered an exaggerated annoyance response in many.
        imp0cat 3y ago
        Yes, but why? Why does Rust (or, more precisely, the "rewrite in Rust" meme) such negative connotation?
        pdimitar 3y ago
        I honestly have no clue and will only speculate. The people criticizing the "rewrite it in Rust" or "written in Rust" monikers always came across as grumpy curmudgeons to me. I never saw an actual good technical criticism. Also they might have made the mistake of judging a very big and heterogenous community by a few zealot loudmouths (and every community has those). Informed and objective people shouldn't judge like that but I think it reinforces a preconceived notion that they already have. The human brain can betray us like that. If you already dislike something, practically every criticism towards it, no matter how small, makes you immediately go: "A-ha! This thing is bad! I knew it!"
- Twirrim 3y ago
  Almost every single project that makes it to the front page of HN tells you as part of the opening sentences what language it's in. For a good while it was "<thing>, (re)written in Go". There's nothing special or unique in the rust community about this, it's just what people in tech do. The type of complaining you're doing is also nothing new, because exactly the same occurs under those posts when it's the language de jour. A few years ago when it was all about Go, you could look in the HN comments and see people complaining exactly the same way about Go and the Go community.

timeon 3y ago

Stating the technology makes you dislike the community. >.> Why are you on HN?

theshrike79 3y ago

It's a marketing tactic, there is a non-insignificant people who will check out a project just because of Rust.

farresito 3y ago

> Rust is not a user feature, it's an implementation detail Sure, but keep in mind that in the case of open source software plenty of people will choose software written in their favorite language so that they can potentially contribute to it. Or simply because they feel more connected to something that is written in their favorite language. So I don't think it's completely irrelevant.

rowanG077 3y ago

Well memory safety is a user feature. So "X but in Rust" has merit if X is written in C or C++.

gnur 3y ago

It might not be a feature, but it is a selling point. It conveys that it was written relatively recently, is more likely to support modern features in the shell, runs reasonably fast and is reasonably portable. If it was written in JS or python I'd already start worrying about what package manager to install it with in which environment, installing it globally is an anti pattern but symlinking it to .local/bin might complicate it. So IMHO, the language something is written in is not just an implementation detail, it informs me in how well it will perform.

weebull 3y ago
It's a prompt. Writing anything for that purpose is code gardening, but hey it's in rust so I'm supposed to be excited? That, in essence is the problem "X in rust" normally means "I've written something of low value IN RUST. Gimmee upvotes". Come back when the project is interesting regardless of the language.

jpambrun 3y ago

I like that go and rust binaries are statically linked. This means that I can build an environment I like using these and bring them almost everywhere, wsl, Mac, Ubuntu, red hat, etc. For me, this is the feature of rust/go.

pdimitar 3y ago

It's not only though I don't understand why is this getting you "tired". Rust has memory safety built in (unless one goes VERY out of their way to nullify it) which to many, myself included, is a selling point. F.ex. I wouldn't be interested in the userland tools rewrite if they weren't in Rust. > Rust is not a user feature, it's an implementation detail. It is that, yes, but not only that. Again, memory safety. And as another poster pointed out -- statically linked binaries. That helps a lot with certain deployments. Also consider that HN might not be the place for you if mentioning implementation details are ticking you off. That's more or less how this forum started in the first place: people discussing implementation details.

PurpleRamen 3y ago

> Rust is not a user feature, it's an implementation detail. Rust is the new C. It communicates that something is fast, but also secure, and new or a modern reimplementation of something old. So, in that sense, is it a user feature because it has established itself in a way that tells the user some important details.

itishappy 3y ago

cntrl-f "rust" -> 2 results I think you might just be prejudiced. Do you have the same reaction to, say, SQLite? https://www.sqlite.org/index.html https://www.sqlite.org/index.html > SQLite is a C-language library that implements a small, fast, self-contained, high-reliability, full-featured, SQL database engine.

darthrupert 3y ago

I started thinking like that, but the general high quality and innovatio. of the various things rewritten in Rust has made me reconsider. I think it has become a significant user feature.

Zababa 3y ago

"X in Rust" to me mean that I won't have to fiddle with it when installing it and it'll work out of the box. This isn't unique to Rust, Go does this very well too. It'll also be reasonably fast, not just because of the language, but because the community likes performance. For example, a few years ago I tried the tldr command. It was in Node.js and unbearably slow. There was a Rust implementation, tealdeer, that was way faster.

KolenCh 3y ago

Am I the only one who is getting tired of comments complaining about people put “written in Rust” in the title? Lately every post having “written in Rust” has a comment like this. If you don’t care, ignore it. Why should it bother you so much?

a_random_canuck 3y ago

Speak for yourself. It makes me love the community. Rust’s memory safety definitely makes it a user feature.