5 ms·

Please, stop using "written in Rust" as some kind of advantage or killer feature.

yashasolutions 4mo ago
This.
chrishare 4mo ago
Well, it probably is an advantage over the same product written in say C++, all other variables held the same - just not a big one.
analog_daddy 4mo ago
No, it is an advantage. I am not a rust evangelist, I am not a rust programmer or programmer at all; however while evaluating tools to use, anything written in Rust and Go at-least gets me to look at the project in more detail, since they most likely are able to ship statically linked binaries, which has been one of the key criteria for my personal evaluation of tools to select and use. So, you might not consider it as a valid signal, however it might be for other users. Even if it has a negative connotation for you. Which in itself, again might be a good filter in case you don’t want to use it.
- altmanaltman 4mo ago
  How is statically linked binaries an unique advantage of rust or go? you can do the same with C, C++, pascal, ada, zig, and more. Rust even doesnt do the static binary file by default. You might have better devops experience as an end-user of the said software if its statically linked and its a good trend in software sure but it is not unique to go or rust. Admitting you don't know how to code and still trying to argue rust is better is just wild sorry.
  - zamalek 4mo ago
    Zig and probably Pascal have the same advantage, can't speak for Ada as I've never built it. C and C++? You've got to be joking. If the project provides static binaries, sure, but I don't want to have to worry about finding a necronomicon and summoning the correct kind of imp required to properly use whatever insane build system the project is using.
    - altmanaltman 4mo ago
      You are missing the point here. Single binary files are not what makes a programming language good or bad. Its like saying "I want a red car because it goes fast" when people are actually disucssing how the engine works or how easy/difficult is it to drive etc. You cannot base your like/dislike on that single criteria and expect that to actually make sense.
      - dijit 4mo ago
        This totally depends. For some people, Linux package management is not solved. Static binaries at least work for deployment. More useful for client software, but you can’t just dismiss someone for having this preference given the poor viability of running arbitrary binaries on Linux due to GNU’s userland style.
        johnisgood 4mo ago
        No, it does not depend. Your parent is correct with his analogy. Linux package management is solved, if it depends on something, it depends on the specific Linux distribution, but "Linux" package management is definitely solved.
      - johnisgood 4mo ago
        Off: I thought I am becoming dumb, but this really puts me in a new perspective. The odd thing is that even people who work in IT hold similar beliefs. I am not entirely sure what is going on. Favoring a language so blindly seems like a thing, apparently? For example they seem to have convinced themselves that Rust is "safe" if you use it for anything (without implementing the security features) because it is (memory) safe? I did not imagine beginners would make such a mistake either, but alas. I noticed your comment is getting downvoted. I wish I knew why though. Is it because of your analogy? Is it because they think that somehow "single binary" has anything to do with the programming language? Would like to know. I am not going to assume that it is a confirmation of what I wrote earlier.
    - CobrastanJorji 4mo ago
  - nananana9 4mo ago
    There's a pretty strong culture of "no static linking because I need to replace the .so to preserve my freedom hurr durr" in a lot of Linux spaces, so quite a few of these C/C++ FOSS libraries are a pain in the ass to statically link. Literally last week I was porting something to Linux and had to rewrite the libwayland build scripts because they only expose a shared object. There's also an expectation that you're going to install them via your system's package manager, not build them, so a lot of them use insane build systems (autotools, meson).
    - pastage 4mo ago
      You are right that there are many of us who prefer the package manager, there are so many reasons why a package manager makes your life wonderful. Debian has always been a proponent of dynamic linking. When you create a Linux distribution that is a big plus. For me install size matters and statically linked stuff are too big sometimes. Of course a 100MB go statically compiled binary has huge advantages now days.
  - badsectoracula 4mo ago
    It is not about being able to make static binaries or really anything that has to do with anything technical. It is more of a cultural thing - the culture in some languages is to link dependencies dynamically (C/C++) whereas the culture in others is to link dependencies statically (Go, not sure about Rust). Personally i do not even write Go myself yet when i see some webapp made in Go i'm pretty much always sure that it'll be a self-contained static binary. Yes, there are probably exceptions (and i haven't surveyed all webapps made with Go) but it has been common enough to feel as the standard approach to me - and if i ever decide to make a binary webapp, i'll probably reach for Go to do it.
  - berkes 4mo ago
    > Rust even doesnt do the static binary file by default. Huh? It does. Only libc is dynamically linked, by default, which --iirc-- all programs will commonly need anyway. All the rest is statically linked. In fact, it takes some hoop-jumping to build dynamically linked binaries with cargo.
    - johnisgood 4mo ago
      If the binary still depends on libc.so.6 (glibc) at runtime, then it is not a fully static binary (read: not a static binary). It is a dynamically linked executable, albeit one where most non-libc dependencies have been statically linked. I am not going to pretend I know Rust enough to comment (yes, would be a minute check), I was just commenting on the "Only libc is dynamically linked" bit.
      - berkes 4mo ago
        That's the default. One can also statically bind that libc.so.6 quite easily. Though that's not the default. edit: Ironically, that makes shipping the binary a tad harder, since this "linux" version won't "magically" run on about every Linux, or mac version on mac, etc. I guess that's why its not the default, though that's just me guessing.
        johnisgood 4mo ago
        I really was just commenting on the "Only libc is dynamically linked" bit. But yeah, there are cons and pros of dynamic vs static. :)
- alexpadula 4mo ago
  You can write git in any language, I don't see an advantage doing it in Rust besides the community and potential of promotion to that community.
  - giancarlostoro 4mo ago
    Sure, but we're talking about a git web UI with a little icing, not a git replacement (at least in most cases). Even so, Rust and Go web projects are much more lighterweight than projects in most other languages, with drastically less effort towards performance, and use less resources as a result, requiring less hardware to operate.
  - 1dom 4mo ago
    You just responded to a comment giving a specific advantage that applies to Rust and a few other languages which doesn't apply to a large amount of other languages (single static binary). How can you still not see any advantage? Or was the point of your comment to say that you think the only real motivation is self or Rust promotion, suggesting some dishonesty amongst the people you're responding to?
  - jvanderbot 4mo ago
    You can write any program in any language, but there are definitely benefits of using some languages for some programs. If you disagree with this statement, there's nothing else to discuss, we have irreconcilable differences.
- cztomsik 4mo ago
  "single binary, no dependencies besides crypto" would be an advantage, "written in Rust" tells nothing, except (successfully) trying to clickbait
  - cocoto 4mo ago
    There is no lie or misleading information about rust in the title so it’s clearly not clickbait.
    - echoangle 4mo ago
      > There is no lie or misleading information about rust in the title so it’s clearly not clickbait. That’s not what clickbait means at all.
      - senordevnyc 4mo ago
        That’s exactly what clickbait means: Clickbait (also known as link bait or linkbait) is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow ("click") that link and view, read, stream or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait
  - insanitybit 4mo ago
    It expresses the exact same thing you've just said and more with fewer words.
    - cztomsik 4mo ago
      no, it's just clickbait. - Rust is huge, many options, many programming styles - typical Rust project has lots of transitive dependencies - there is nothing in Rust that disallows using system libraries or linking to them - it's not even true that the program is going to be mem-safe because there could still be unsafe {} either in the repo, or in any of the transitive deps. not to say that safety is broader than just mem-safety. if you think "written in Rust" says anything, I'd argue that you might give it a try and find out yourself. I did that, and I am glad I am out. the reason why I am telling you is because I've been click-baited (into Rust) before, and it took me few years to realize all of this, and to make a move.
- jvanderbot 4mo ago
  The benefit is the static compilation. But the "Written in rust" stuff comes with so much falsehood baggage about automatic best-in-class performance, automatic perfect safety, automatic rigor, that it is detrimental to just say "written in rust" and not provide a more nuanced statement about why that's good (or just drop it as a headline item!). You might not agree because you can single out one automatic benefit of rust b/c of Cargo (not rust), but even that is suspect b/c Rust can ship with dynamic libraries if configured to do so. In this case, the credibility and benefits are clearer if they said "Static binary". This is all just context. If you see a benefit to that headline, that's ok.
- nwalkr 4mo ago
  being written in rust is clear disadvantage for web-app.
rvz 4mo ago
Was going to point that out, as it is irrelevant, but I have seen something far worse. > 7. How does gitdot make money? > We don't. > We are fortunate enough to have raised a small pre-seed round from investors we are happy to call friends, and also to be at a point in our lives where we are financially independent and in good health. The founders of Artifact said the same thing. They had no plan to make money and once they used their own capital they decided not to continue running it anymore (no-one else wanted to invest in Artifact). So it is only a matter of time until they eventually need to make money, raise money or shut it down.
adamnemecek 4mo ago
It is a killer feature. It tells me I can easily compile and edit the code myself.
zellyn 4mo ago
Oh stop being silly. Yes, the programming language is technically irrelevant in that they’re all Turing complete. In reality, the programming language tells you all kinds of subtle things: probabilities about the way the software will feel to use, how stable it’s likely to be, how fast, what the author is likely to focus on. I found one of the best jobs of my life in 2015 by asking “who’s doing interesting things in Atlanta in Go?” Not because I was uncompromisingly settled on Go, but because in 2015, using Go (often) connoted a certain approach, a certain type of engineering, a certain constellation of values. So please stop pretending the whole gestalt of programming languages and their communities don’t deeply affect the resulting software. (I say this with no unkindness intended, mostly to all of hackernews)
- Perz1val 4mo ago
  > but because in 2015, using Go (often) connoted a certain approach, a certain type of engineering, a certain constellation of values So called "The vibe". And the vibe emanating from Rust is sometimes unbearable. Like claiming the main feature of the project is that it's written in Rust.
bogota 4mo ago
[dead]
lelanthran 4mo ago
From what I can see, it would be more accurate if they wrote "slopped by LLMs" :-) I am indeed curious to see how an agent-coded project turns out in the long term. Coherencey from LLMs decreases as the source increases in volume, waiting to see how this all turns out.
- devsda 4mo ago
  > Coherencey from LLMs decreases as the source increases in volume, waiting to see how this all turns out. I wonder if feature velocity closely tracks LLM context management innovations. May be this encourages more modular systems if those improvements can't come fast enough.
- boxed 4mo ago
  If the design was done with Claude Code/Design it would be a lot better than this imo. Bland, but better.
jm4 4mo ago
It’s one of the first questions people will ask so it’s probably worthwhile to mention it. I didn’t get the impression they did so just because they thought rust was some kind of flex.
- CobrastanJorji 4mo ago
  If the first thing people ask about your offering is "what programming language did you use when you made this," your offering is probably not that interesting.
  - scared_together 4mo ago
    The offering in question is "A better GitHub" so you are correct. That is an actual quote from the FAQ [0] by the way. In comparison CodeBerg [1] and SourceHut [2] both offer Git hosting but don't merely describe themselves as "GitHub but X". [0] https://gitdot.io/faq https://gitdot.io/faq [1] https://codeberg.org/ https://codeberg.org/ [2] https://sourcehut.org/ https://sourcehut.org/
  - thayne 4mo ago
    Or maybe your audience is developers who might want to contribute to the project, and would prefer to work in some languages more than others.
    - CobrastanJorji 4mo ago
      If your primary audience is people who want to contribute to it, then the fun of hacking on it is more impactful than the benefit of the offering itself. That's not bad at all! But it also does not suggest that the offering itself is particularly impactful.
      - thayne 4mo ago
        Not necessarily. It isn't at all unusual to use something because it is useful and also want to be able to make improvements to it.
ottavio 4mo ago
Yeah, rust programmers are the new software vegans. They claim it is better just because of the language, ignoring the features gap, the size of the team developing and supporting the software and not having solved any issue with the software they compete against. And to be clear, this in not in favour of GH, it is against the mentality that the programming language makes better products and programmers.
- Patryk27 4mo ago
  > They claim it is better just because of the language I mean, it clearly is better (in certain contexts), see e.g. https://blog.google/security/rust-in-android-move-fast-fix-things/ https://blog.google/security/rust-in-android-move-fast-fix-t... > We adopted Rust for its security and are seeing a 1000x reduction in memory safety vulnerability density compared to Android’s C and C++ code. But the biggest surprise was Rust's impact on software delivery. With Rust changes having a 4x lower rollback rate and spending 25% less time in code review, the safer path is now also the faster one.
  - ottavio 4mo ago
    Bugs are not only related to memory and a program cannot be considered safe Just because it got rid of pointers, malloc and free. If you really think that switching language is the main driver to get safe programs, the you are on the list of people replaceable by LLMs. Othewise you have to understand that architettural chioces, concurrency, (weak) cryptographic function and user stupidity have a significant impact, no matter what language you use. Memory management is just a part of the problem.
    - Patryk27 4mo ago
      > If you really think that switching language is the main driver to get safe programs [...] I didn't write that. > [...] the you are on the list of people replaceable by LLMs. lol, love a high quality discussion > Memory management is just a part of the problem. Sure, then using Rust is a step forward, because that's one less thing you have to worry about. Seat belts don't save all people, but a car equipped with seat belts is - on average - safer than a car without seat belts.
saidnooneever 4mo ago
It would be nice if they mentioned anyhting at all they are doing to implement security features. instead of leaning onf Rust which does absolutely nothing in that regard. just look owasp top 10 and observe it has nothing to do with memory safety. and thats just a top 10 of things. only for very few companies, memory safety issues are a thing. most of those dont use rust because it lacks tooling and certification paths -_-. rust is like AI and cloud. heavily marketed, not bad, but not as good as whats on the box -_-. it makes life usually harder for a lot of aspects (ofc cleverly avoid in publications about it -_-)
- johnisgood 4mo ago
  Yeah, this is what the people who have parroted "Rust is safe" have achieved. Rust is not "safe" in the broader sense of the word, only "memory safe". You have to implement the security yourself!
thayne 4mo ago
I suspect the fact that Github and Gitlab use ruby backends is a significant (although by no means the only) factor in the slowness of Github and Gitlab. So yes, being written in a language that is better suited for high performance at scale is, potentially, an advantage. Although if it is vibe coded, there's a decent chance there are architectural problems that offset the advantage gained from the choice in language.
- epolanski 4mo ago
  GitHub used to be great when the frontend too was in ruby, the react rework might've got somebody promoted but performance was never the same. GitHub is so data heavy and there's so little reactivity that it should really be server side rendered.
  - IshKebab 4mo ago
    The frontend was Ruby?? Are you sure?
    - pdpi 4mo ago
      As in rendered server-side.
    - ClikeX 4mo ago
      Not literally. And I would hardly say it was a matter of language superiority. I love Ruby myself. But Github was a lot simpler when it was still just a Rails app. But Rails was SSR by default, and most of the frontend was just Embedded Ruby (ERB) template files all over the place. And way back when, it was even relatively common to use Javascript supersets like CoffeeScript[1] and Opal[2]. The latter being Ruby that compiled to JS. [1]: https://coffeescript.org/ https://coffeescript.org/ [2]: https://opalrb.com/ https://opalrb.com/
    - TeriyakiBomb 4mo ago
      Yes, standard rails. Rails does not ship with components out of the box and the most prominent component system for rails was built and is maintained by GitHub. They have been moving to React for the last few years though, it seems to be more about hiring and ergonomics rather than capability.
epolanski 4mo ago
You can only do so if it is "written in Zig" /s, I love zig, but I'm consistently surprised of how popular any post containing zig in the title makes it to the front page almost daily, doesn't happen with any other language.
ClikeX 4mo ago
But did you know Rust is memory safe?!
kfrane 4mo ago
When I see that, my first thought is that there are a bunch of features missing from the original.
berkes 4mo ago
"Written in Rust" signals some common attributes. Fast, Safe, Lightweight, Statically linked (plop a precompiled binary in ~/.local/bin and run it), few/shallow dependencies, senior developers, "Done" software. Now, certainly no guarantees, enough counter-examples, I know. And attributes that one can get with anything from PHP via Javascript to Lisp as well. Some attributes have stronger correlation than others too. But, in general, "rust" has a (much) higher chance of meeting these attributes. I care about those attributes above anything else.
- gspr 4mo ago
  I'm happy to label myself a Rust fanboy, but > few/shallow dependencies is just flat-out wrong. There's (sadly) a big culture of sprawling, deep dependencies in the Rust community. There are of course many counterexamples too, but it's definitely not correct that Rust signals the virtue you refer to. (Incidentally, the misguided idea among some that as long as a dependency isn't through FFI, it doesn't count as a dependency, is one of the things I dislike the most about Rust culture. That, and pervasive bundling.)
  - dbdr 4mo ago
    > the misguided idea among some that as long as a dependency isn't through FFI, it doesn't count as a dependency, is one of the things I dislike the most about Rust culture I have not heard that idea a single time. There's definitely the idea that FFI dependencies "count more" / add more baggage (because there's a bigger risk that the build fails, it's harder to investigate memory safety, ...). Absolutely not that a non-FFI dependency "does not count".
    - gspr 4mo ago
      Sadly I couldn't find an example at the moment. We're probably better off striking my parenthetical claim then :)
  - berkes 4mo ago
    Probably my reference is tainting this then. I come from Perl, PHP (both of which, at that time, had nonexisting or terrible package managing - CPAN, PEAR), then Ruby, with gems and now Python, Typescript/Javascript. Starting with Ruby, I've developed in communities that heavily depend on deep dependency trees. For me, the discipline of shallow dependencies, no-dependencies etc, was new when I came to rust. Sure, if I pull in something like Rocket, it comes with dependencies, that have dependencies that have dependencies. But Rocket is one of the more extreme examples I know of, and even that is nowhere near the depth of a tree that common (not extreme) npm frameworks/libraries come with. Before yarn I sometimes had node-module trees that went over 50 levels deep. The Python community doesn't have this extreme deep dependencies, but in Python it is far more common to "from foo import bar" in both libraries and in applications than to write a few hundred lines of code yourself. The Django and "lean" flask, or "simple" cli apps I worked with and on, quite commonly have hundreds of dependencies (many of which are dependencies of dependencies etc). Within that context, rust community is far more conservative. Many of the dependencies that I use have one, maybe two of their own deps. Many none. And it's more common - IME - to see libraries that have just one level of deps - the libs a lib depends on, itself won't have deps. Though, I guess, C or even C++ community, lacking OOTB, common and easy dependency management like cargo, will be far more conservative even. Rather than being "flat out wrong", I'd say it very much depends (pun intended) on where you come from and compare rust with.
nicce 4mo ago
Imagine if someone says, written in in plain and pure JavaScript. Is there a difference? What kind of promise it tells about the software?
AbuAssar 4mo ago
It is an advantage
mapcars 4mo ago
You assume that its used to show advantage, but we are on a technical forum and for me, as an engineer, its always interesting what language or tech was used to create a project.
monster_truck 4mo ago
This drives me nuts too and your comment is justified. Recently encountered someone going 'full crab' with rust & vk trying to chase perf, they were not happy when some thoughtfully written modern JS beat the brakes off it even with the overhead of the browser (~2000fps vs 750) This kind of thoughtless "its rust!!!" shit causes people who don't know better to waste time chasing their tails. Claude seems to encourage it :\
taintlord22 4mo ago
[dead]
up2isomorphism 4mo ago
Actually it almost serves like an anti-features to me.

This.

Well, it probably is an advantage over the same product written in say C++, all other variables held the same - just not a big one.

analog_daddy 4mo ago

No, it is an advantage. I am not a rust evangelist, I am not a rust programmer or programmer at all; however while evaluating tools to use, anything written in Rust and Go at-least gets me to look at the project in more detail, since they most likely are able to ship statically linked binaries, which has been one of the key criteria for my personal evaluation of tools to select and use. So, you might not consider it as a valid signal, however it might be for other users. Even if it has a negative connotation for you. Which in itself, again might be a good filter in case you don’t want to use it.

altmanaltman 4mo ago
How is statically linked binaries an unique advantage of rust or go? you can do the same with C, C++, pascal, ada, zig, and more. Rust even doesnt do the static binary file by default. You might have better devops experience as an end-user of the said software if its statically linked and its a good trend in software sure but it is not unique to go or rust. Admitting you don't know how to code and still trying to argue rust is better is just wild sorry.
- zamalek 4mo ago
  Zig and probably Pascal have the same advantage, can't speak for Ada as I've never built it. C and C++? You've got to be joking. If the project provides static binaries, sure, but I don't want to have to worry about finding a necronomicon and summoning the correct kind of imp required to properly use whatever insane build system the project is using.
  - altmanaltman 4mo ago
    You are missing the point here. Single binary files are not what makes a programming language good or bad. Its like saying "I want a red car because it goes fast" when people are actually disucssing how the engine works or how easy/difficult is it to drive etc. You cannot base your like/dislike on that single criteria and expect that to actually make sense.
    - dijit 4mo ago
      This totally depends. For some people, Linux package management is not solved. Static binaries at least work for deployment. More useful for client software, but you can’t just dismiss someone for having this preference given the poor viability of running arbitrary binaries on Linux due to GNU’s userland style.
      - johnisgood 4mo ago
        No, it does not depend. Your parent is correct with his analogy. Linux package management is solved, if it depends on something, it depends on the specific Linux distribution, but "Linux" package management is definitely solved.
    - johnisgood 4mo ago
      Off: I thought I am becoming dumb, but this really puts me in a new perspective. The odd thing is that even people who work in IT hold similar beliefs. I am not entirely sure what is going on. Favoring a language so blindly seems like a thing, apparently? For example they seem to have convinced themselves that Rust is "safe" if you use it for anything (without implementing the security features) because it is (memory) safe? I did not imagine beginners would make such a mistake either, but alas. I noticed your comment is getting downvoted. I wish I knew why though. Is it because of your analogy? Is it because they think that somehow "single binary" has anything to do with the programming language? Would like to know. I am not going to assume that it is a confirmation of what I wrote earlier.
  - CobrastanJorji 4mo ago
- nananana9 4mo ago
  There's a pretty strong culture of "no static linking because I need to replace the .so to preserve my freedom hurr durr" in a lot of Linux spaces, so quite a few of these C/C++ FOSS libraries are a pain in the ass to statically link. Literally last week I was porting something to Linux and had to rewrite the libwayland build scripts because they only expose a shared object. There's also an expectation that you're going to install them via your system's package manager, not build them, so a lot of them use insane build systems (autotools, meson).
  - pastage 4mo ago
    You are right that there are many of us who prefer the package manager, there are so many reasons why a package manager makes your life wonderful. Debian has always been a proponent of dynamic linking. When you create a Linux distribution that is a big plus. For me install size matters and statically linked stuff are too big sometimes. Of course a 100MB go statically compiled binary has huge advantages now days.
- badsectoracula 4mo ago
  It is not about being able to make static binaries or really anything that has to do with anything technical. It is more of a cultural thing - the culture in some languages is to link dependencies dynamically (C/C++) whereas the culture in others is to link dependencies statically (Go, not sure about Rust). Personally i do not even write Go myself yet when i see some webapp made in Go i'm pretty much always sure that it'll be a self-contained static binary. Yes, there are probably exceptions (and i haven't surveyed all webapps made with Go) but it has been common enough to feel as the standard approach to me - and if i ever decide to make a binary webapp, i'll probably reach for Go to do it.
- berkes 4mo ago
  > Rust even doesnt do the static binary file by default. Huh? It does. Only libc is dynamically linked, by default, which --iirc-- all programs will commonly need anyway. All the rest is statically linked. In fact, it takes some hoop-jumping to build dynamically linked binaries with cargo.
  - johnisgood 4mo ago
    If the binary still depends on libc.so.6 (glibc) at runtime, then it is not a fully static binary (read: not a static binary). It is a dynamically linked executable, albeit one where most non-libc dependencies have been statically linked. I am not going to pretend I know Rust enough to comment (yes, would be a minute check), I was just commenting on the "Only libc is dynamically linked" bit.
    - berkes 4mo ago
      That's the default. One can also statically bind that libc.so.6 quite easily. Though that's not the default. edit: Ironically, that makes shipping the binary a tad harder, since this "linux" version won't "magically" run on about every Linux, or mac version on mac, etc. I guess that's why its not the default, though that's just me guessing.
      - johnisgood 4mo ago
        I really was just commenting on the "Only libc is dynamically linked" bit. But yeah, there are cons and pros of dynamic vs static. :)
alexpadula 4mo ago
You can write git in any language, I don't see an advantage doing it in Rust besides the community and potential of promotion to that community.
- giancarlostoro 4mo ago
  Sure, but we're talking about a git web UI with a little icing, not a git replacement (at least in most cases). Even so, Rust and Go web projects are much more lighterweight than projects in most other languages, with drastically less effort towards performance, and use less resources as a result, requiring less hardware to operate.
- 1dom 4mo ago
  You just responded to a comment giving a specific advantage that applies to Rust and a few other languages which doesn't apply to a large amount of other languages (single static binary). How can you still not see any advantage? Or was the point of your comment to say that you think the only real motivation is self or Rust promotion, suggesting some dishonesty amongst the people you're responding to?
- jvanderbot 4mo ago
  You can write any program in any language, but there are definitely benefits of using some languages for some programs. If you disagree with this statement, there's nothing else to discuss, we have irreconcilable differences.
cztomsik 4mo ago
"single binary, no dependencies besides crypto" would be an advantage, "written in Rust" tells nothing, except (successfully) trying to clickbait
- cocoto 4mo ago
  There is no lie or misleading information about rust in the title so it’s clearly not clickbait.
  - echoangle 4mo ago
    > There is no lie or misleading information about rust in the title so it’s clearly not clickbait. That’s not what clickbait means at all.
    - senordevnyc 4mo ago
      That’s exactly what clickbait means: Clickbait (also known as link bait or linkbait) is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow ("click") that link and view, read, stream or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait
- insanitybit 4mo ago
  It expresses the exact same thing you've just said and more with fewer words.
  - cztomsik 4mo ago
    no, it's just clickbait. - Rust is huge, many options, many programming styles - typical Rust project has lots of transitive dependencies - there is nothing in Rust that disallows using system libraries or linking to them - it's not even true that the program is going to be mem-safe because there could still be unsafe {} either in the repo, or in any of the transitive deps. not to say that safety is broader than just mem-safety. if you think "written in Rust" says anything, I'd argue that you might give it a try and find out yourself. I did that, and I am glad I am out. the reason why I am telling you is because I've been click-baited (into Rust) before, and it took me few years to realize all of this, and to make a move.
jvanderbot 4mo ago
The benefit is the static compilation. But the "Written in rust" stuff comes with so much falsehood baggage about automatic best-in-class performance, automatic perfect safety, automatic rigor, that it is detrimental to just say "written in rust" and not provide a more nuanced statement about why that's good (or just drop it as a headline item!). You might not agree because you can single out one automatic benefit of rust b/c of Cargo (not rust), but even that is suspect b/c Rust can ship with dynamic libraries if configured to do so. In this case, the credibility and benefits are clearer if they said "Static binary". This is all just context. If you see a benefit to that headline, that's ok.
nwalkr 4mo ago
being written in rust is clear disadvantage for web-app.

rvz 4mo ago

Was going to point that out, as it is irrelevant, but I have seen something far worse. > 7. How does gitdot make money? > We don't. > We are fortunate enough to have raised a small pre-seed round from investors we are happy to call friends, and also to be at a point in our lives where we are financially independent and in good health. The founders of Artifact said the same thing. They had no plan to make money and once they used their own capital they decided not to continue running it anymore (no-one else wanted to invest in Artifact). So it is only a matter of time until they eventually need to make money, raise money or shut it down.

adamnemecek 4mo ago

It is a killer feature. It tells me I can easily compile and edit the code myself.

zellyn 4mo ago

Oh stop being silly. Yes, the programming language is technically irrelevant in that they’re all Turing complete. In reality, the programming language tells you all kinds of subtle things: probabilities about the way the software will feel to use, how stable it’s likely to be, how fast, what the author is likely to focus on. I found one of the best jobs of my life in 2015 by asking “who’s doing interesting things in Atlanta in Go?” Not because I was uncompromisingly settled on Go, but because in 2015, using Go (often) connoted a certain approach, a certain type of engineering, a certain constellation of values. So please stop pretending the whole gestalt of programming languages and their communities don’t deeply affect the resulting software. (I say this with no unkindness intended, mostly to all of hackernews)

Perz1val 4mo ago
> but because in 2015, using Go (often) connoted a certain approach, a certain type of engineering, a certain constellation of values So called "The vibe". And the vibe emanating from Rust is sometimes unbearable. Like claiming the main feature of the project is that it's written in Rust.

bogota 4mo ago

[dead]

lelanthran 4mo ago

From what I can see, it would be more accurate if they wrote "slopped by LLMs" :-) I am indeed curious to see how an agent-coded project turns out in the long term. Coherencey from LLMs decreases as the source increases in volume, waiting to see how this all turns out.

devsda 4mo ago
> Coherencey from LLMs decreases as the source increases in volume, waiting to see how this all turns out. I wonder if feature velocity closely tracks LLM context management innovations. May be this encourages more modular systems if those improvements can't come fast enough.
boxed 4mo ago
If the design was done with Claude Code/Design it would be a lot better than this imo. Bland, but better.

jm4 4mo ago

It’s one of the first questions people will ask so it’s probably worthwhile to mention it. I didn’t get the impression they did so just because they thought rust was some kind of flex.

CobrastanJorji 4mo ago
If the first thing people ask about your offering is "what programming language did you use when you made this," your offering is probably not that interesting.
- scared_together 4mo ago
  The offering in question is "A better GitHub" so you are correct. That is an actual quote from the FAQ [0] by the way. In comparison CodeBerg [1] and SourceHut [2] both offer Git hosting but don't merely describe themselves as "GitHub but X". [0] https://gitdot.io/faq https://gitdot.io/faq [1] https://codeberg.org/ https://codeberg.org/ [2] https://sourcehut.org/ https://sourcehut.org/
- thayne 4mo ago
  Or maybe your audience is developers who might want to contribute to the project, and would prefer to work in some languages more than others.
  - CobrastanJorji 4mo ago
    If your primary audience is people who want to contribute to it, then the fun of hacking on it is more impactful than the benefit of the offering itself. That's not bad at all! But it also does not suggest that the offering itself is particularly impactful.
    - thayne 4mo ago
      Not necessarily. It isn't at all unusual to use something because it is useful and also want to be able to make improvements to it.

ottavio 4mo ago

Yeah, rust programmers are the new software vegans. They claim it is better just because of the language, ignoring the features gap, the size of the team developing and supporting the software and not having solved any issue with the software they compete against. And to be clear, this in not in favour of GH, it is against the mentality that the programming language makes better products and programmers.

Patryk27 4mo ago
> They claim it is better just because of the language I mean, it clearly is better (in certain contexts), see e.g. https://blog.google/security/rust-in-android-move-fast-fix-things/ https://blog.google/security/rust-in-android-move-fast-fix-t... > We adopted Rust for its security and are seeing a 1000x reduction in memory safety vulnerability density compared to Android’s C and C++ code. But the biggest surprise was Rust's impact on software delivery. With Rust changes having a 4x lower rollback rate and spending 25% less time in code review, the safer path is now also the faster one.
- ottavio 4mo ago
  Bugs are not only related to memory and a program cannot be considered safe Just because it got rid of pointers, malloc and free. If you really think that switching language is the main driver to get safe programs, the you are on the list of people replaceable by LLMs. Othewise you have to understand that architettural chioces, concurrency, (weak) cryptographic function and user stupidity have a significant impact, no matter what language you use. Memory management is just a part of the problem.
  - Patryk27 4mo ago
    > If you really think that switching language is the main driver to get safe programs [...] I didn't write that. > [...] the you are on the list of people replaceable by LLMs. lol, love a high quality discussion > Memory management is just a part of the problem. Sure, then using Rust is a step forward, because that's one less thing you have to worry about. Seat belts don't save all people, but a car equipped with seat belts is - on average - safer than a car without seat belts.

saidnooneever 4mo ago

It would be nice if they mentioned anyhting at all they are doing to implement security features. instead of leaning onf Rust which does absolutely nothing in that regard. just look owasp top 10 and observe it has nothing to do with memory safety. and thats just a top 10 of things. only for very few companies, memory safety issues are a thing. most of those dont use rust because it lacks tooling and certification paths -_-. rust is like AI and cloud. heavily marketed, not bad, but not as good as whats on the box -_-. it makes life usually harder for a lot of aspects (ofc cleverly avoid in publications about it -_-)

johnisgood 4mo ago
Yeah, this is what the people who have parroted "Rust is safe" have achieved. Rust is not "safe" in the broader sense of the word, only "memory safe". You have to implement the security yourself!

thayne 4mo ago

I suspect the fact that Github and Gitlab use ruby backends is a significant (although by no means the only) factor in the slowness of Github and Gitlab. So yes, being written in a language that is better suited for high performance at scale is, potentially, an advantage. Although if it is vibe coded, there's a decent chance there are architectural problems that offset the advantage gained from the choice in language.

epolanski 4mo ago
GitHub used to be great when the frontend too was in ruby, the react rework might've got somebody promoted but performance was never the same. GitHub is so data heavy and there's so little reactivity that it should really be server side rendered.
- IshKebab 4mo ago
  The frontend was Ruby?? Are you sure?
  - pdpi 4mo ago
    As in rendered server-side.
  - ClikeX 4mo ago
    Not literally. And I would hardly say it was a matter of language superiority. I love Ruby myself. But Github was a lot simpler when it was still just a Rails app. But Rails was SSR by default, and most of the frontend was just Embedded Ruby (ERB) template files all over the place. And way back when, it was even relatively common to use Javascript supersets like CoffeeScript[1] and Opal[2]. The latter being Ruby that compiled to JS. [1]: https://coffeescript.org/ https://coffeescript.org/ [2]: https://opalrb.com/ https://opalrb.com/
  - TeriyakiBomb 4mo ago
    Yes, standard rails. Rails does not ship with components out of the box and the most prominent component system for rails was built and is maintained by GitHub. They have been moving to React for the last few years though, it seems to be more about hiring and ergonomics rather than capability.

epolanski 4mo ago

You can only do so if it is "written in Zig" /s, I love zig, but I'm consistently surprised of how popular any post containing zig in the title makes it to the front page almost daily, doesn't happen with any other language.

ClikeX 4mo ago

But did you know Rust is memory safe?!

kfrane 4mo ago

When I see that, my first thought is that there are a bunch of features missing from the original.

berkes 4mo ago

"Written in Rust" signals some common attributes. Fast, Safe, Lightweight, Statically linked (plop a precompiled binary in ~/.local/bin and run it), few/shallow dependencies, senior developers, "Done" software. Now, certainly no guarantees, enough counter-examples, I know. And attributes that one can get with anything from PHP via Javascript to Lisp as well. Some attributes have stronger correlation than others too. But, in general, "rust" has a (much) higher chance of meeting these attributes. I care about those attributes above anything else.

gspr 4mo ago
I'm happy to label myself a Rust fanboy, but > few/shallow dependencies is just flat-out wrong. There's (sadly) a big culture of sprawling, deep dependencies in the Rust community. There are of course many counterexamples too, but it's definitely not correct that Rust signals the virtue you refer to. (Incidentally, the misguided idea among some that as long as a dependency isn't through FFI, it doesn't count as a dependency, is one of the things I dislike the most about Rust culture. That, and pervasive bundling.)
- dbdr 4mo ago
  > the misguided idea among some that as long as a dependency isn't through FFI, it doesn't count as a dependency, is one of the things I dislike the most about Rust culture I have not heard that idea a single time. There's definitely the idea that FFI dependencies "count more" / add more baggage (because there's a bigger risk that the build fails, it's harder to investigate memory safety, ...). Absolutely not that a non-FFI dependency "does not count".
  - gspr 4mo ago
    Sadly I couldn't find an example at the moment. We're probably better off striking my parenthetical claim then :)
- berkes 4mo ago
  Probably my reference is tainting this then. I come from Perl, PHP (both of which, at that time, had nonexisting or terrible package managing - CPAN, PEAR), then Ruby, with gems and now Python, Typescript/Javascript. Starting with Ruby, I've developed in communities that heavily depend on deep dependency trees. For me, the discipline of shallow dependencies, no-dependencies etc, was new when I came to rust. Sure, if I pull in something like Rocket, it comes with dependencies, that have dependencies that have dependencies. But Rocket is one of the more extreme examples I know of, and even that is nowhere near the depth of a tree that common (not extreme) npm frameworks/libraries come with. Before yarn I sometimes had node-module trees that went over 50 levels deep. The Python community doesn't have this extreme deep dependencies, but in Python it is far more common to "from foo import bar" in both libraries and in applications than to write a few hundred lines of code yourself. The Django and "lean" flask, or "simple" cli apps I worked with and on, quite commonly have hundreds of dependencies (many of which are dependencies of dependencies etc). Within that context, rust community is far more conservative. Many of the dependencies that I use have one, maybe two of their own deps. Many none. And it's more common - IME - to see libraries that have just one level of deps - the libs a lib depends on, itself won't have deps. Though, I guess, C or even C++ community, lacking OOTB, common and easy dependency management like cargo, will be far more conservative even. Rather than being "flat out wrong", I'd say it very much depends (pun intended) on where you come from and compare rust with.

nicce 4mo ago

Imagine if someone says, written in in plain and pure JavaScript. Is there a difference? What kind of promise it tells about the software?

AbuAssar 4mo ago

It is an advantage

mapcars 4mo ago

You assume that its used to show advantage, but we are on a technical forum and for me, as an engineer, its always interesting what language or tech was used to create a project.

monster_truck 4mo ago

This drives me nuts too and your comment is justified. Recently encountered someone going 'full crab' with rust & vk trying to chase perf, they were not happy when some thoughtfully written modern JS beat the brakes off it even with the overhead of the browser (~2000fps vs 750) This kind of thoughtless "its rust!!!" shit causes people who don't know better to waste time chasing their tails. Claude seems to encourage it :\

taintlord22 4mo ago

[dead]

up2isomorphism 4mo ago

Actually it almost serves like an anti-features to me.