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> strangely and disproportionately pushed on Hacker News There is literally nothing strange or disproportionate. It's incredibly obvious that new languages, th

by misnome 9mo ago

> strangely and disproportionately pushed on Hacker News There is literally nothing strange or disproportionate. It's incredibly obvious that new languages, that were designed by people who found older languages lacking, are of interest to groups of people interested in new applications of technology and who want to use their new languages. > then those from outside the project shouldn't really have any say on it. It's their project. People outside the project are allowed to say whatever the hell they want, the project doesn't have to listen.

shevy-java 9mo ago
I am pretty certain Rust is pushed more than other languages. Whether warranted or not is another topic, but I think the OP has a point here.
whatamidoingyo 9mo ago
"having a say on something", in OP's context, means authority and influence over decisions... People can say whatever they want, yes, but not everyone can "have a say on something".
hu3 9mo ago
I understand "shouldn't really have any say on it" as shouldn't expect to infuence the project. Not that they are not allowed to say anything. Otherwise they would have written something along the lines of "shouldn't say anything about it".
lelanthran 9mo ago
> People outside the project are allowed to say whatever the hell they want, And? GP didn't say that they shouldn't.
coliveira 9mo ago
> People outside the project are allowed to say whatever the hell they want What these people do is a disservice to the general open source community, by spreading misinformation and general FUD about critical software that uses C and C++.
arghwhat 9mo ago
> People outside the project are allowed to say whatever the hell they want, the project doesn't have to listen. Within reason - don't be a dick and all that. :)
donkeybeer 9mo ago
I think it's more than just the normal amount for advocacy of a new language. Rust isn't the only "newer" language. I don't feel this kind of mentally strung pushing of say Kotlin or Scala or Go or, etc from their fans.
- bigfishrunning 9mo ago
  I think this is because of the gap in its target market -- Rust is firmly positioned to replace C and C++, which have a long history of safety issues. Kotlin is positioned to replace java, and besides a few quality-of-life improvements, it changes some syntax but very few semantics, so the gap is much smaller. Go was originally pitched as a C or C++ replacement, and it's very nice for deeply parallel programs like web services, but its big runtime and its GC rule it out for a lot of (especially very low level or latency-critical) uses -- you don't see Go ported to microcontrollers for instance. I can't speak for Scala, because i don't have experience writing software in it. To summarize, Rust provides a lot of compile-time discipline that C and C++ are lacking, and many people are tired of maintaining code that was developed without that discipline. Rust makes it harder to write low-effort software. As a programmer that picks up a new language every 2-3 years (and one that is privileged to have an employer that tolerates this) Rust is really a breath of fresh air; not because it's easier, but because it codifies and enforces some good habits in ways that other languages don't.
  - tonyplee 9mo ago
    Love to see an AI agent to auto transpile C (sqlite, apache, nginx, mariadb, etc) into rust and run all the regression associated tests and perf benchmarks and produce report on the porting processes and perf delta.
    - nindalf 9mo ago
      Sqlite's test suite is closed source, so no one other than the Sqlite authors can attempt that. That said, you may be interested in this attempt by Turso to rewrite Sqlite in Rust (https://turso.tech/blog/we-will-rewrite-sqlite-and-we-are-going-all-in https://turso.tech/blog/we-will-rewrite-sqlite-and-we-are-go...). They're not using AI, but they are using some novel ways to test their code.
ashtonshears 9mo ago
Rust is pushed on the internet
- guywithahat 9mo ago
  I definitely wouldn't say internet, I think it's popular on HN and a few other online forums. There are a lot of X/twitter circles which make are critical of rust, as well as other sites. In my mind at least there's a decent risk Rust is going to end up like the next Haskell, its benefits other than safety are not that clear and many of those features can and have been replicated in other languages.
  - josephg 9mo ago
    Many of its biggest benefits of rust come directly from other languages - including Haskell. Like, rust’s Option is identical to Haskell’s Maybe type. Traits are similar to type classes in Haskell, or interfaces in Go. In my mind, the thing that makes rust and zig nice are that they put modern language features in a systems language. Non-nullable pointers and match expressions in a language that runs as fast as C? Yes please. I love rust, but I personally doubt rust will ever be anywhere near as popular as Python, go, JavaScript and C#. It’s just so complex and difficult to learn. But its niche is pretty clear to me: I see it as a tool for writing beautiful, correct, memory safe, performant systems code. I used to love C. But between zig, rust and Odin, I can’t see myself ever using it again. C is just so much less productive and less pleasant to use than more modern languages.
metalliqaz 9mo ago
And here I was just reading in another thread that HN was so much less toxic than other places...
- alexpadula 9mo ago
  Where do you see people having toxic debates?
locknitpicker 9mo ago
> There is literally nothing strange or disproportionate. It's incredibly obvious that new languages, that were designed by people who found older languages lacking, are of interest to groups of people interested in new applications of technology and who want to use their new languages. This is a disingenuous opinion. The level of militance involved in this propaganda push goes way beyond mere interest. Just look at people who actually enjoy Java, C++, Python, etc. These are the most popular languages that mankind ever developed,and countless people built very successful careers around them. Yet, you don't see even a fraction of the fanboys you see constantly pushing these experimental languages.

by misnome 9mo ago

shevy-java 9mo ago

I am pretty certain Rust is pushed more than other languages. Whether warranted or not is another topic, but I think the OP has a point here.

whatamidoingyo 9mo ago

"having a say on something", in OP's context, means authority and influence over decisions... People can say whatever they want, yes, but not everyone can "have a say on something".

hu3 9mo ago

I understand "shouldn't really have any say on it" as shouldn't expect to infuence the project. Not that they are not allowed to say anything. Otherwise they would have written something along the lines of "shouldn't say anything about it".

lelanthran 9mo ago

> People outside the project are allowed to say whatever the hell they want, And? GP didn't say that they shouldn't.

coliveira 9mo ago

> People outside the project are allowed to say whatever the hell they want What these people do is a disservice to the general open source community, by spreading misinformation and general FUD about critical software that uses C and C++.

arghwhat 9mo ago

> People outside the project are allowed to say whatever the hell they want, the project doesn't have to listen. Within reason - don't be a dick and all that. :)

donkeybeer 9mo ago

I think it's more than just the normal amount for advocacy of a new language. Rust isn't the only "newer" language. I don't feel this kind of mentally strung pushing of say Kotlin or Scala or Go or, etc from their fans.

bigfishrunning 9mo ago
I think this is because of the gap in its target market -- Rust is firmly positioned to replace C and C++, which have a long history of safety issues. Kotlin is positioned to replace java, and besides a few quality-of-life improvements, it changes some syntax but very few semantics, so the gap is much smaller. Go was originally pitched as a C or C++ replacement, and it's very nice for deeply parallel programs like web services, but its big runtime and its GC rule it out for a lot of (especially very low level or latency-critical) uses -- you don't see Go ported to microcontrollers for instance. I can't speak for Scala, because i don't have experience writing software in it. To summarize, Rust provides a lot of compile-time discipline that C and C++ are lacking, and many people are tired of maintaining code that was developed without that discipline. Rust makes it harder to write low-effort software. As a programmer that picks up a new language every 2-3 years (and one that is privileged to have an employer that tolerates this) Rust is really a breath of fresh air; not because it's easier, but because it codifies and enforces some good habits in ways that other languages don't.
- tonyplee 9mo ago
  Love to see an AI agent to auto transpile C (sqlite, apache, nginx, mariadb, etc) into rust and run all the regression associated tests and perf benchmarks and produce report on the porting processes and perf delta.
  - nindalf 9mo ago
    Sqlite's test suite is closed source, so no one other than the Sqlite authors can attempt that. That said, you may be interested in this attempt by Turso to rewrite Sqlite in Rust (https://turso.tech/blog/we-will-rewrite-sqlite-and-we-are-going-all-in https://turso.tech/blog/we-will-rewrite-sqlite-and-we-are-go...). They're not using AI, but they are using some novel ways to test their code.

ashtonshears 9mo ago

Rust is pushed on the internet

guywithahat 9mo ago
I definitely wouldn't say internet, I think it's popular on HN and a few other online forums. There are a lot of X/twitter circles which make are critical of rust, as well as other sites. In my mind at least there's a decent risk Rust is going to end up like the next Haskell, its benefits other than safety are not that clear and many of those features can and have been replicated in other languages.
- josephg 9mo ago
  Many of its biggest benefits of rust come directly from other languages - including Haskell. Like, rust’s Option is identical to Haskell’s Maybe type. Traits are similar to type classes in Haskell, or interfaces in Go. In my mind, the thing that makes rust and zig nice are that they put modern language features in a systems language. Non-nullable pointers and match expressions in a language that runs as fast as C? Yes please. I love rust, but I personally doubt rust will ever be anywhere near as popular as Python, go, JavaScript and C#. It’s just so complex and difficult to learn. But its niche is pretty clear to me: I see it as a tool for writing beautiful, correct, memory safe, performant systems code. I used to love C. But between zig, rust and Odin, I can’t see myself ever using it again. C is just so much less productive and less pleasant to use than more modern languages.

metalliqaz 9mo ago

And here I was just reading in another thread that HN was so much less toxic than other places...

alexpadula 9mo ago
Where do you see people having toxic debates?

locknitpicker 9mo ago

> There is literally nothing strange or disproportionate. It's incredibly obvious that new languages, that were designed by people who found older languages lacking, are of interest to groups of people interested in new applications of technology and who want to use their new languages. This is a disingenuous opinion. The level of militance involved in this propaganda push goes way beyond mere interest. Just look at people who actually enjoy Java, C++, Python, etc. These are the most popular languages that mankind ever developed,and countless people built very successful careers around them. Yet, you don't see even a fraction of the fanboys you see constantly pushing these experimental languages.