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Using Rust is a political solution to deskill a generation of coders to replace higher-cost labor with lower The push for Rust isn't just a technical decision

Using Rust is a political solution to deskill a generation of coders to replace higher-cost labor with lower The push for Rust isn't just a technical decision - it's a calculated economic strategy. By forcing rewrites of stable systems in a new language, companies effectively reset the clock on developer experience and expertise. When a C/C++ codebase with 30 years of institutional knowledge gets rewritten in Rust, senior developers with decades of experience suddenly compete on more equal footing with juniors who just graduated. Your 15 years of C++ optimization knowledge? Now worth less than a 22-year-old's six months of Rust bootcamp training. This isn't about memory safety - it's about labor costs. Companies call it "modernization" while quietly erasing the premium they'd otherwise pay for experience. The technical arguments serve as perfect cover for what's really happening: deliberately manufacturing a scenario where they can replace $250K senior engineers with $80K juniors. The pattern is familiar to anyone who's watched other industries. Create artificial obsolescence of existing skills, then exploit the resulting chaos to reset salary expectations and eliminate the leverage that comes with specialized knowledge. This is why language transitions always seem to coincide with hiring freezes and "restructuring." It's never been about technical superiority - it's about breaking labor's bargaining power.

jeroenhd 2y ago
That's an interesting conspiracy theory I haven't heard before. However, I doubt the investment into rewriting large projects makes any financial sense even if the goal is to kick out the experts. Rewrites take years, even if the junior does it for cheaper, and migrations are an existential business risk. If those 15 years of C++ optimization don't provide an advantage over what a 22 year old with half a year of bootcamp can provide for a quarter of the price, then maybe it really is time to stop doing things in C++. The unfortunate truth of programming as a profession is that you need to move with the times. If C++ is on its way out (which I highly doubt), it's time to learn Rust. Most Visual Basic programmers moved on, as did most Fortran programmers, and many C++ programmers when Java hit the scene. When you're making this about labour's bargaining power, you're assuming that young labour is a threat to experience labour. Perhaps that's the case to some extent, as the shortage of people with programming skills that has led to the ridiculously high wages for the software industry is slowly evaporating, but gatekeeping the industry isn't some kind of pro-labour move, it's just selfish.
- black_13 2y ago
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bfrog 2y ago
It's more like replacing 4 C++ software people with 1-2 Rust people, because there's half as much work when you aren't constantly coding foot guns. The rest really is tin foil hat stuff. I'll believe it if I see it, until then its hard to see Rust as a deskilling. The language requires a different skill is all.
- black_13 2y ago
  [dead]

jeroenhd 2y ago

That's an interesting conspiracy theory I haven't heard before. However, I doubt the investment into rewriting large projects makes any financial sense even if the goal is to kick out the experts. Rewrites take years, even if the junior does it for cheaper, and migrations are an existential business risk. If those 15 years of C++ optimization don't provide an advantage over what a 22 year old with half a year of bootcamp can provide for a quarter of the price, then maybe it really is time to stop doing things in C++. The unfortunate truth of programming as a profession is that you need to move with the times. If C++ is on its way out (which I highly doubt), it's time to learn Rust. Most Visual Basic programmers moved on, as did most Fortran programmers, and many C++ programmers when Java hit the scene. When you're making this about labour's bargaining power, you're assuming that young labour is a threat to experience labour. Perhaps that's the case to some extent, as the shortage of people with programming skills that has led to the ridiculously high wages for the software industry is slowly evaporating, but gatekeeping the industry isn't some kind of pro-labour move, it's just selfish.

black_13 2y ago
[dead]

bfrog 2y ago

It's more like replacing 4 C++ software people with 1-2 Rust people, because there's half as much work when you aren't constantly coding foot guns. The rest really is tin foil hat stuff. I'll believe it if I see it, until then its hard to see Rust as a deskilling. The language requires a different skill is all.

black_13 2y ago
[dead]