6 ms·

Seems like the trifecta group is /just/ about migrating tools to rust? Am I understanding that right? I don't have a problem with it, specifically. Seems odd t

Seems like the trifecta group is /just/ about migrating tools to rust? Am I understanding that right? I don't have a problem with it, specifically. Seems odd that they don't advertise it, though.

homefree 1y ago
[flagged]
- Ygg2 1y ago
  > The religious element of rust programmers Yeah. I too, hate the Rust Evangelically Orthodox Later Day Christians. Oh, wait... You're serious. What is religious about rewriting tools in Rust? Isn't that what most programmers do for fun and learning? Is it any more religious than worshiping Alan Kay or Dijkstra? > It makes me wonder how much is motivated by stuff other than what’s actually the best outcome. Looks in the thread... Sees https://www.sudo.ws/security/advisories/ https://www.sudo.ws/security/advisories/ Are you sure the status quo is the better outcome?
  - kjrfghslkdjfl 1y ago
    [dead]
  - ziddoap 1y ago
    >What is religious about rewriting tools in Rust? "Religious" isn't being used to refer to people rewriting tools in Rust. It's used to refer to people zealously commenting on message boards that every single tool ever built should be rewritten in Rust, and if you aren't rewriting your tool in Rust, you're an idiot.
    - Ygg2 1y ago
      > It's used to refer to people zealously commenting on message boards that every single tool ever built should be rewritten in Rust. Ok, but between me, GP and the article, who said that? Where are the Rabid RIIR fans? And before you misquote me, I said, why wouldn't you rewrite stuff in Rust, if the status quo is ridden with bugs, and safety issues? And why shouldn't a Linux distro switch to it if they desire.
      - johnisgood 1y ago
        So sudo is ridden with bugs and safety issues, as opposed to the Rust alternative? I came across a lot of ridiculously absurd logic bugs in the Rust version. Maybe you can still see GitHub Issues.
      - ziddoap 1y ago
        >Ok, but between me, GP and the article, who said that? Where are the Rabid RIIR fans? The person you replied to said: "The religious element of rust programmers seems more extreme than other languages." You interpreted that in a way that ended up with you asking "What is religious about rewriting tools in Rust". I clarified that the typical way "religious element of rust programmers" is interpreted is not the act of rewriting tools, but the proselytizing about rust on message boards. I then gave an example of what that proselytizing typically looks like (which was not a claim that you said something like that). That is the "religious element" being referred to. The proselytizing is the religious element, not the act of rewriting tools in Rust. (The meme "Rust Evangelists" didn't manifest out of thin air because people hate memory safety or whatever -- it's because people are really, really passionate about Rust, and are vocal about that passion)
        Ygg2 1y ago
        > The proselytizing is the religious element, not the act of rewriting tools in Rust. Ok. Where is the proselytizing taking place in the article? Is the sudo-rs did work, the proselytization? Where is it? > The meme "Rust Evangelists" didn't manifest out of thin air That's not how memes work. It's just something that appeals to some group that spreads it. It can be true, false and fabricated out of thin air. What if I told you, that "What if I told you" meme isn't what Morpheus says to Neo? The scene itself is so divorced from meme it doesn't carry much resemblance (here https://youtu.be/L8H9DqkrkcY https://youtu.be/L8H9DqkrkcY)
        ziddoap 1y ago
        >Ok. Where is the proselytizing taking place in the article? It's not? It's like you're picking random words out of my comment to quote without bothering to read what I'm writing. Nothing of what I said is about the article. It's about your misinterpretation of what fossuser meant when they said "religious element". I can't explain the same thing for a third (fourth, I guess? since I just tried again) time, I'm running out of different ways to say it. So I'll just leave it there. Your meta-commentary on memes is neat and all, but again, somehow, completely misses the point I was making.
- VWWHFSfQ 1y ago
  Memory safety is strictly a good thing, regardless of motivations. But I'm aware that some people are frightened of new languages and paradigms especially if they're 'harder' than what they're used to.
  - davrosthedalek 1y ago
    Only if you don't buy any downsides with it. That makes it situational dependent. For example: - less people being able to read the code, work with the code, find (security) bugs - slower I know, I know, rust is not really slower, and for sudo it probably wouldn't even matter. But safety isn't the be all and end all of software. There is a lot of software out there where memory safety doesn't matter, or matters a lot less than other aspects.
    - 778464636 1y ago
      Supply chain attacks is a big downside no one ever mentions. Even sudo-rs drags dependencies in from Github at build time instead of being self-contained, which is just an absurd thing to do for such an essential tool, especially in the current political climate.
      - estebank 1y ago
        1) every dependency comes from crates.io, not straight from GitHub 2) the dependency list is tiny 3) it uses a cargo lock, so even if it were using a GitHub dependency, that file keeps a hash of the dependency and points at the specific commit, so if the dependency were to introduce a backdoor it wouldn't be automatically picked up and a commit history rewrite would also fail https://github.com/trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs/blob/main/Cargo.lock https://github.com/trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs/blob/main/...
  - FpUser 1y ago
    >"But I'm aware that some people are frightened of new languages..." I am not frightened. I program in many languages and have no problems grasping Rust concepts. However I find Rust way too opinionated and restricting for personal tastes. For business I can not see myself replacing C++ with Rust unless my paying clients specifically request it. So far not a single one had expressed any interest.
- mid-kid 1y ago
  We've accepted it at this point, but I wonder if the religious element of GNU tools and free software in general was as contentious way back when.
  - Analemma_ 1y ago
    A little while ago I realized with a start that it's been years since I've heard anyone angrily insist on calling it "GNU/Linux", when that was constant background noise during the Slashdot era. One of those old fights that just faded away, I guess.
    - mid-kid 1y ago
      That's true. I find myself still saying GNU/Linux where it's relevant (e.g. when referring to the userland, or a compatible userland) but it's not as contentious as it used to be, which is a nice breath.
    - i80and 1y ago
      Oh yeah, I got to meet Stallman at a book signing when I was like 17, and like an idiot happened to wear a "Linux" shirt. I genuinely hadn't thought of this point of contention beforehand, but oof he did not care for that.
      - mrpippy 1y ago
        Did you tell him you were a fan of just the kernel, not the userland?
      - hedora 1y ago
        I got him to imply I was being cheap!
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - jcalvinowens 1y ago
      Its more that it ceased to be true: you can build a "nognu" Linux now, with LLVM as the system compiler, and musl/libc++ instead of glibc/libstdc++. https://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/amd64/autobuilds/current-stage3-amd64-musl-llvm/ https://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/amd64/autobuilds/curre...
- rs186 1y ago
  > The religious element It is only "religious" if you think it in such a way. I'd say the amount of skepticism (rather than valid criticism) has been no less than enthusiam in the community. As the saying goes, there are two kinds of languages...
  - mystified5016 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - rascul 1y ago
      [flagged]
- dismalaf 1y ago
  Not like GNU is any less religious... I think they just want to ditch GNU tools and lots of young, low level programmers want to use Rust (same rationale for Linus accepting Rust code into the kernel).
  - arp242 1y ago
    sudo isn't GNU though.
- CooCooCaCha 1y ago
  [flagged]
- jvanderbot 1y ago
  You've always encountered this, it just not (until recently) had a _whole language_ to migrate to. It's this strong impulse to do things the "right way" which is a very good instinct, but always has the danger of becoming "rigor theater". It's the same any time anyone proposes to "just" port to a new framework, or runtime, or platform, or language. Tale as old as time.
- nailer 1y ago
  It's not religious. Memory safety is a thing. If by politics you mean the government: they only got started recommending memory safe languages once it became clear that foreign actors were going to keep exploiting C / C++ vulnerabilities. https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/the_us_government_wants_developers/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/the_us_government_wan...
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    So why are we not using Ada / SPARK?
    - __s 1y ago
      Indeed Ada found popularity for aircraft software Rust is part of a modernized iteration in language design this century Nobody is calling for Ada code to be rewritten in Rust. But at this point you'd want an argument to choose Ada over Rust when it has become more widespread, especially in open source projects Here's someone else's take on your question a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28347930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28347930
      - johnisgood 1y ago
        Just for the curious, Ada is used in these industries: - Avionics - ATM - Space - Rail - Automotive - Defense - Security - Medical https://www.adacore.com/about-ada https://www.adacore.com/about-ada You can find lots of resources here to learn Ada / SPARK: https://learn.adacore.com https://learn.adacore.com or just to see what is up. Alternatively, there are good blog posts, too.
      - johnisgood 1y ago
        I thought I should reply separately to your comment, but I do not see how he got to the conclusion "in other words, if your goal is to write a (say) safe implementation of the DOM that can render real-world web pages while efficiently using memory on a general-purpose computer, Ada is probably the wrong tool for the job.". My only "issue" here would be its verbosity, which is why I choose C still quite often.
- tialaramex 1y ago
  Politics is just everything. "No politics" usually means, "Opinions which conflict with mine are unwelcome" or at best the small-C conservative idea that the status quo has existed forever and so whatever happens to presently be the case is just how things should be. In your own comment you mention "actually the best outcome" but that's a matter of politics, doubtless you have different ideas about what "best" would be than I do, and I appreciate that perhaps you've never considered that anybody other than you could be right, but you might want to take a moment to think again.
  - dataflow 1y ago
    > Politics is just everything. "No politics" usually means, "Opinions which conflict with mine are unwelcome" or at best the small-C conservative idea that the status quo has existed forever and so whatever happens to presently be the case is just how things should be. Everything is political in the same way that everything is offensive and everyone is evil. As in, you're welcome to go around saying that, but don't expect people to find this to be an enlightened perspective.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > Politics is just everything. The point is that they seem to have conflated opinions about what policies are correct for general real-world issues, with those that are specific to the task of programming. > "No politics" usually means No; "no politics" usually means "please do not attempt to bring up topics that relate to decisions made by governments, and instead stay focused on topics directly related to the project at hand". > or at best the small-C conservative idea that the status quo has existed forever and so whatever happens to presently be the case is just how things should be. I have never understood how this argument makes sense to anyone. Obviously, "changing the status quo" is a policy position in a way that "not changing the status quo" isn't. The argument is effectively that it's impossible to just not care about something, for any given thing. I refute this by noting that an effectively unlimited number of policies can be proposed, yet I am not constantly thinking about politics. > but that's a matter of politics, doubtless you have different ideas about what "best" would be than I do, and I appreciate that perhaps you've never considered that anybody other than you could be right, but you might want to take a moment to think again. Again, I can't fathom how this line of argument makes sense to anyone. "Politics" is, quite simply, understood by the overwhelming majority of people in such a way that determining "best outcome" for a computer program not used in any government capacity is obviously not a political matter. Or else: in your view, what does "should `sudo` do X in Y situation?" have in common with "should country X go to war with country Y?" ?
- atoav 1y ago
  The comment you responded to says: "Seems odd that they don't advertise it [the usage of Rust], though." Isn't not advertising a language the polar opposite of being religious about a language? I am all for a memory safe sudo and I don't care which language it is written in, use C, Ada, Rust, as long as it is a suitable systems programming language understood by a community of developers and you can proof memory safety to an acceptable degree. If the people first to do it in an such an way happen to use Rust, not accepting that based purely on the language is what would sound religious to me.. Maybe this protectionist reaction (see recent drama within the Linux kernel) is every bit as religiously colored as some people claim Rust people are. I mean memory safety? What comes next? Not allowing us to use after free like true men would? \s
  - __s 1y ago
    There was recently that article about Python switching to a proof verified C crypto library. Yes, I welcome verified C code. But Rust is much easier to use instead Tho the extra properties re side channels in said verified code outdoes Rust, so I'd also say it'd be undesirable to replace that C code with Rust
  - homefree 1y ago
    I don't have a strong opinion on what language - the bit you edited in what I was replying to changed the meaning of what they were saying. My reply is flagged dead now which is fine since it did create an unproductive thread, but it was more that I had noticed Rust as a community seems to have more of an identity based political bent around it more so than other languages. Something I've also noticed with Mozilla - it's not just the language, but that the language signals you're a certain kind of person with a certain kind of politics in addition to the general pro-rust stuff. I don't recall seeing this combination elsewhere with other languages before - though there have been religious like battles over languages forever, but I don't think it's been predictive of someone's political identity before?
    - atoav 1y ago
      > but I don't think it's been predictive of someone's political identity before? This is a pretty astounding claim. On which data did you base that conclusion? Because if it is purely anecdotal, you might consider that this is a bit like with Apple fanboys. Apple generally makes good products. Most people who use their stuff don't even talk about it, but those who do talk about it tend to have strong opinions that extend the quality of Apples products themselves. But these opinions are not even remotely representative of the broad majority of Apple users. Rust similarily lends itself to fanboyism, because the language has a strong narrative going for it, that is part of its success. The narrative isn't even a bad one: create a programming language that makes certain common classes of mistakes impossible and others much harder. Like every topic with strong narrative this will draw in a certain amount of people who will strongly defend said narrative, but those aren't necessarily the manority of the people who use the language. So unless you made a proper poll that tries to select for a broad set of Rust users instead of basing your judgment on a loud online minority I wouldn't be confident in the result. I with "identity based bent" you mean they are inclusive and have strong community rules, it might just be that this is normal where the Rust users are from. Last time I checked Rust was very popular in European countries and over here these kind of rules are pretty off the shelve standard. But please tell me this isn't about you calling them "woke" and confusing basic human dignity with politics.
- mardifoufs 1y ago
  I mean, I don't necessarily use rust a lot and it's not even possible to "use" in most cases in my domain (machine learning engineering)... But to say that it's religious is just weird. It would have been super easy to portray as religious every push for better engineering practices in other fields, in fact I bet that it would've happened if the internet was common back when people were doing exactly that for say, civil engineering or mechanical engineering.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  It is almost always the case that proposed changes to the technology stack of a project is intrinsically political. Unless every participant is equally proficient with the new thing as the old thing, then the proposed change is a de facto power play which will change the balance of power and experience and consequently usher in a reorganization. This is why so many Linux developers resists the addition of Rust or C++.
john-h-k 1y ago
The other big thing iirc is they’re all MIT licensed rather than GPL(et variants) licensed
- ndiddy 1y ago
  Sudo is permissively licensed. https://www.sudo.ws/about/license/ https://www.sudo.ws/about/license/
  - john-h-k 1y ago
    Ah, interesting to know. I guess it is only the coreutils stuff where that is a concern

Seems like the trifecta group is /just/ about migrating tools to rust? Am I understanding that right? I don't have a problem with it, specifically. Seems odd that they don't advertise it, though.

homefree 1y ago

[flagged]

Ygg2 1y ago
> The religious element of rust programmers Yeah. I too, hate the Rust Evangelically Orthodox Later Day Christians. Oh, wait... You're serious. What is religious about rewriting tools in Rust? Isn't that what most programmers do for fun and learning? Is it any more religious than worshiping Alan Kay or Dijkstra? > It makes me wonder how much is motivated by stuff other than what’s actually the best outcome. Looks in the thread... Sees https://www.sudo.ws/security/advisories/ https://www.sudo.ws/security/advisories/ Are you sure the status quo is the better outcome?
- kjrfghslkdjfl 1y ago
  [dead]
- ziddoap 1y ago
  >What is religious about rewriting tools in Rust? "Religious" isn't being used to refer to people rewriting tools in Rust. It's used to refer to people zealously commenting on message boards that every single tool ever built should be rewritten in Rust, and if you aren't rewriting your tool in Rust, you're an idiot.
  - Ygg2 1y ago
    > It's used to refer to people zealously commenting on message boards that every single tool ever built should be rewritten in Rust. Ok, but between me, GP and the article, who said that? Where are the Rabid RIIR fans? And before you misquote me, I said, why wouldn't you rewrite stuff in Rust, if the status quo is ridden with bugs, and safety issues? And why shouldn't a Linux distro switch to it if they desire.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      So sudo is ridden with bugs and safety issues, as opposed to the Rust alternative? I came across a lot of ridiculously absurd logic bugs in the Rust version. Maybe you can still see GitHub Issues.
    - ziddoap 1y ago
      >Ok, but between me, GP and the article, who said that? Where are the Rabid RIIR fans? The person you replied to said: "The religious element of rust programmers seems more extreme than other languages." You interpreted that in a way that ended up with you asking "What is religious about rewriting tools in Rust". I clarified that the typical way "religious element of rust programmers" is interpreted is not the act of rewriting tools, but the proselytizing about rust on message boards. I then gave an example of what that proselytizing typically looks like (which was not a claim that you said something like that). That is the "religious element" being referred to. The proselytizing is the religious element, not the act of rewriting tools in Rust. (The meme "Rust Evangelists" didn't manifest out of thin air because people hate memory safety or whatever -- it's because people are really, really passionate about Rust, and are vocal about that passion)
      - Ygg2 1y ago
        > The proselytizing is the religious element, not the act of rewriting tools in Rust. Ok. Where is the proselytizing taking place in the article? Is the sudo-rs did work, the proselytization? Where is it? > The meme "Rust Evangelists" didn't manifest out of thin air That's not how memes work. It's just something that appeals to some group that spreads it. It can be true, false and fabricated out of thin air. What if I told you, that "What if I told you" meme isn't what Morpheus says to Neo? The scene itself is so divorced from meme it doesn't carry much resemblance (here https://youtu.be/L8H9DqkrkcY https://youtu.be/L8H9DqkrkcY)
        ziddoap 1y ago
        >Ok. Where is the proselytizing taking place in the article? It's not? It's like you're picking random words out of my comment to quote without bothering to read what I'm writing. Nothing of what I said is about the article. It's about your misinterpretation of what fossuser meant when they said "religious element". I can't explain the same thing for a third (fourth, I guess? since I just tried again) time, I'm running out of different ways to say it. So I'll just leave it there. Your meta-commentary on memes is neat and all, but again, somehow, completely misses the point I was making.
VWWHFSfQ 1y ago
Memory safety is strictly a good thing, regardless of motivations. But I'm aware that some people are frightened of new languages and paradigms especially if they're 'harder' than what they're used to.
- davrosthedalek 1y ago
  Only if you don't buy any downsides with it. That makes it situational dependent. For example: - less people being able to read the code, work with the code, find (security) bugs - slower I know, I know, rust is not really slower, and for sudo it probably wouldn't even matter. But safety isn't the be all and end all of software. There is a lot of software out there where memory safety doesn't matter, or matters a lot less than other aspects.
  - 778464636 1y ago
    Supply chain attacks is a big downside no one ever mentions. Even sudo-rs drags dependencies in from Github at build time instead of being self-contained, which is just an absurd thing to do for such an essential tool, especially in the current political climate.
    - estebank 1y ago
      1) every dependency comes from crates.io, not straight from GitHub 2) the dependency list is tiny 3) it uses a cargo lock, so even if it were using a GitHub dependency, that file keeps a hash of the dependency and points at the specific commit, so if the dependency were to introduce a backdoor it wouldn't be automatically picked up and a commit history rewrite would also fail https://github.com/trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs/blob/main/Cargo.lock https://github.com/trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs/blob/main/...
- FpUser 1y ago
  >"But I'm aware that some people are frightened of new languages..." I am not frightened. I program in many languages and have no problems grasping Rust concepts. However I find Rust way too opinionated and restricting for personal tastes. For business I can not see myself replacing C++ with Rust unless my paying clients specifically request it. So far not a single one had expressed any interest.
mid-kid 1y ago
We've accepted it at this point, but I wonder if the religious element of GNU tools and free software in general was as contentious way back when.
- Analemma_ 1y ago
  A little while ago I realized with a start that it's been years since I've heard anyone angrily insist on calling it "GNU/Linux", when that was constant background noise during the Slashdot era. One of those old fights that just faded away, I guess.
  - mid-kid 1y ago
    That's true. I find myself still saying GNU/Linux where it's relevant (e.g. when referring to the userland, or a compatible userland) but it's not as contentious as it used to be, which is a nice breath.
  - i80and 1y ago
    Oh yeah, I got to meet Stallman at a book signing when I was like 17, and like an idiot happened to wear a "Linux" shirt. I genuinely hadn't thought of this point of contention beforehand, but oof he did not care for that.
    - mrpippy 1y ago
      Did you tell him you were a fan of just the kernel, not the userland?
    - hedora 1y ago
      I got him to imply I was being cheap!
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - jcalvinowens 1y ago
    Its more that it ceased to be true: you can build a "nognu" Linux now, with LLVM as the system compiler, and musl/libc++ instead of glibc/libstdc++. https://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/amd64/autobuilds/current-stage3-amd64-musl-llvm/ https://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/amd64/autobuilds/curre...
rs186 1y ago
> The religious element It is only "religious" if you think it in such a way. I'd say the amount of skepticism (rather than valid criticism) has been no less than enthusiam in the community. As the saying goes, there are two kinds of languages...
- mystified5016 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - rascul 1y ago
    [flagged]
dismalaf 1y ago
Not like GNU is any less religious... I think they just want to ditch GNU tools and lots of young, low level programmers want to use Rust (same rationale for Linus accepting Rust code into the kernel).
- arp242 1y ago
  sudo isn't GNU though.
CooCooCaCha 1y ago
[flagged]
jvanderbot 1y ago
You've always encountered this, it just not (until recently) had a _whole language_ to migrate to. It's this strong impulse to do things the "right way" which is a very good instinct, but always has the danger of becoming "rigor theater". It's the same any time anyone proposes to "just" port to a new framework, or runtime, or platform, or language. Tale as old as time.
nailer 1y ago
It's not religious. Memory safety is a thing. If by politics you mean the government: they only got started recommending memory safe languages once it became clear that foreign actors were going to keep exploiting C / C++ vulnerabilities. https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/the_us_government_wants_developers/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/the_us_government_wan...
- johnisgood 1y ago
  So why are we not using Ada / SPARK?
  - __s 1y ago
    Indeed Ada found popularity for aircraft software Rust is part of a modernized iteration in language design this century Nobody is calling for Ada code to be rewritten in Rust. But at this point you'd want an argument to choose Ada over Rust when it has become more widespread, especially in open source projects Here's someone else's take on your question a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28347930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28347930
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      Just for the curious, Ada is used in these industries: - Avionics - ATM - Space - Rail - Automotive - Defense - Security - Medical https://www.adacore.com/about-ada https://www.adacore.com/about-ada You can find lots of resources here to learn Ada / SPARK: https://learn.adacore.com https://learn.adacore.com or just to see what is up. Alternatively, there are good blog posts, too.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      I thought I should reply separately to your comment, but I do not see how he got to the conclusion "in other words, if your goal is to write a (say) safe implementation of the DOM that can render real-world web pages while efficiently using memory on a general-purpose computer, Ada is probably the wrong tool for the job.". My only "issue" here would be its verbosity, which is why I choose C still quite often.
tialaramex 1y ago
Politics is just everything. "No politics" usually means, "Opinions which conflict with mine are unwelcome" or at best the small-C conservative idea that the status quo has existed forever and so whatever happens to presently be the case is just how things should be. In your own comment you mention "actually the best outcome" but that's a matter of politics, doubtless you have different ideas about what "best" would be than I do, and I appreciate that perhaps you've never considered that anybody other than you could be right, but you might want to take a moment to think again.
- dataflow 1y ago
  > Politics is just everything. "No politics" usually means, "Opinions which conflict with mine are unwelcome" or at best the small-C conservative idea that the status quo has existed forever and so whatever happens to presently be the case is just how things should be. Everything is political in the same way that everything is offensive and everyone is evil. As in, you're welcome to go around saying that, but don't expect people to find this to be an enlightened perspective.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > Politics is just everything. The point is that they seem to have conflated opinions about what policies are correct for general real-world issues, with those that are specific to the task of programming. > "No politics" usually means No; "no politics" usually means "please do not attempt to bring up topics that relate to decisions made by governments, and instead stay focused on topics directly related to the project at hand". > or at best the small-C conservative idea that the status quo has existed forever and so whatever happens to presently be the case is just how things should be. I have never understood how this argument makes sense to anyone. Obviously, "changing the status quo" is a policy position in a way that "not changing the status quo" isn't. The argument is effectively that it's impossible to just not care about something, for any given thing. I refute this by noting that an effectively unlimited number of policies can be proposed, yet I am not constantly thinking about politics. > but that's a matter of politics, doubtless you have different ideas about what "best" would be than I do, and I appreciate that perhaps you've never considered that anybody other than you could be right, but you might want to take a moment to think again. Again, I can't fathom how this line of argument makes sense to anyone. "Politics" is, quite simply, understood by the overwhelming majority of people in such a way that determining "best outcome" for a computer program not used in any government capacity is obviously not a political matter. Or else: in your view, what does "should `sudo` do X in Y situation?" have in common with "should country X go to war with country Y?" ?
atoav 1y ago
The comment you responded to says: "Seems odd that they don't advertise it [the usage of Rust], though." Isn't not advertising a language the polar opposite of being religious about a language? I am all for a memory safe sudo and I don't care which language it is written in, use C, Ada, Rust, as long as it is a suitable systems programming language understood by a community of developers and you can proof memory safety to an acceptable degree. If the people first to do it in an such an way happen to use Rust, not accepting that based purely on the language is what would sound religious to me.. Maybe this protectionist reaction (see recent drama within the Linux kernel) is every bit as religiously colored as some people claim Rust people are. I mean memory safety? What comes next? Not allowing us to use after free like true men would? \s
- __s 1y ago
  There was recently that article about Python switching to a proof verified C crypto library. Yes, I welcome verified C code. But Rust is much easier to use instead Tho the extra properties re side channels in said verified code outdoes Rust, so I'd also say it'd be undesirable to replace that C code with Rust
- homefree 1y ago
  I don't have a strong opinion on what language - the bit you edited in what I was replying to changed the meaning of what they were saying. My reply is flagged dead now which is fine since it did create an unproductive thread, but it was more that I had noticed Rust as a community seems to have more of an identity based political bent around it more so than other languages. Something I've also noticed with Mozilla - it's not just the language, but that the language signals you're a certain kind of person with a certain kind of politics in addition to the general pro-rust stuff. I don't recall seeing this combination elsewhere with other languages before - though there have been religious like battles over languages forever, but I don't think it's been predictive of someone's political identity before?
  - atoav 1y ago
    > but I don't think it's been predictive of someone's political identity before? This is a pretty astounding claim. On which data did you base that conclusion? Because if it is purely anecdotal, you might consider that this is a bit like with Apple fanboys. Apple generally makes good products. Most people who use their stuff don't even talk about it, but those who do talk about it tend to have strong opinions that extend the quality of Apples products themselves. But these opinions are not even remotely representative of the broad majority of Apple users. Rust similarily lends itself to fanboyism, because the language has a strong narrative going for it, that is part of its success. The narrative isn't even a bad one: create a programming language that makes certain common classes of mistakes impossible and others much harder. Like every topic with strong narrative this will draw in a certain amount of people who will strongly defend said narrative, but those aren't necessarily the manority of the people who use the language. So unless you made a proper poll that tries to select for a broad set of Rust users instead of basing your judgment on a loud online minority I wouldn't be confident in the result. I with "identity based bent" you mean they are inclusive and have strong community rules, it might just be that this is normal where the Rust users are from. Last time I checked Rust was very popular in European countries and over here these kind of rules are pretty off the shelve standard. But please tell me this isn't about you calling them "woke" and confusing basic human dignity with politics.
mardifoufs 1y ago
I mean, I don't necessarily use rust a lot and it's not even possible to "use" in most cases in my domain (machine learning engineering)... But to say that it's religious is just weird. It would have been super easy to portray as religious every push for better engineering practices in other fields, in fact I bet that it would've happened if the internet was common back when people were doing exactly that for say, civil engineering or mechanical engineering.
lupusreal 1y ago
It is almost always the case that proposed changes to the technology stack of a project is intrinsically political. Unless every participant is equally proficient with the new thing as the old thing, then the proposed change is a de facto power play which will change the balance of power and experience and consequently usher in a reorganization. This is why so many Linux developers resists the addition of Rust or C++.

john-h-k 1y ago

The other big thing iirc is they’re all MIT licensed rather than GPL(et variants) licensed

ndiddy 1y ago
Sudo is permissively licensed. https://www.sudo.ws/about/license/ https://www.sudo.ws/about/license/
- john-h-k 1y ago
  Ah, interesting to know. I guess it is only the coreutils stuff where that is a concern