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Why I Left Rust

jntrnr.com

51–60 of 880 posts

Re: Why I Left Rust

#51
post #28

[flagged]

“Let’s keep this nonsense out of tech”

You’re literally the one bringing it in, with phrases like “woke mindvirus”. Such phrases aren’t intended to foster serious or rational discussion, they’re trollish epithets intended to anger and divide.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#52

I once got a talk demoted from a normal talk to a lightning talk at some unrelated conference to make it work with the schedule. That was indeed not nice. But also not "Cruelty". I just acted professionaly and accepted the change.

If there are malicious actors, by "acting professionally" (probably meaning to ignore your emotions) you are allowing those who are malicious, and do not act professionally, to continue doing that.

Others acting professionally is the best outcome for those who do not do so.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#53

Even if none of this was rooted in retribution or racism or unilateral decision making, the fact that a group representing some of the brightest developers working today did not have the foresight to see how this would play out in today's social climate, is too bad. Event organizers need someone who can think through all the angles of decisions made and how it affects attendees and the communities being represented.…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Left Rust

#54
post #44

I love Rust but the ideological posturing and swathes of people who in their hearts are grifters is truly disappointing. Framing a technical presentation you disagree with as "making you uncomfortable" in highly manipulative fashion definitely deserves to be called out in public.

ideology (culture!) is important. your second point seems trivial, after all let's assume that most of us live and act accordingly (manipulation is bad, and if there's something uncomfortable about a presentation, then it should be directly addressed, etc) but your first seems very interesting. can you please elaborate on who these grifters are, and how to identify them?

> how to identify them?

They abuse their influence to demote a keynote selected by the agreed-upon keynote selection scheme, because it makes them “uncomfortable”.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#55
post #37

For the Rust ignorants like me can someone be kind enough to explain who jntrnr is? The only info I can find is that he worked on Rust core. Can't find an about page or any other information about this personality? Is his role significant enough that his departure from Rust will force Rust leadership to fix their internal problems?

Who is he. He was part of the 4 person "leadership" team and worked on the compiler team. He is one of the maintainer of nushell. He also used to work on Typescript. This is definitely someone with experience and knowledge in these areas and we are all poorer from losing him. I probably missed a lot of his other work, sorry.

Is it role significant enough? Yes. Will it force a fix to the problems? He was the leadership. And they lost other big figures in the past to this kind of shenanigans without change. So probably not

Re: Why I Left Rust

#56
post #10

I've been to plenty of conferences over the years, and I never really knew who was a "keynote speaker" or "only" a "speaker". Does anyone pay attention to this? You give a talk. People show up. They clap at the end. Does it really matter what some title on some conference website is? The communication was perhaps a bit more confusing and hectic than it should have been, but does that really matter? Is that really a b…

The people who don't think this is a big deal are either lacking some empathy or don't understand how conferences work. The equivalent situation is something like being warmly invited to a wedding, which you accept. The bride and groom then spend time gushing over how great it is that you'll be there, telling everyone they know, insisting that you book tickets right away. Later, you're told you can only come to the ceremony and not the reception or party.

In short, it's hard not to feel like you just got baited and switched, even if the withdrawal is for a good reason. "But you'll still be at the ceremony!" isn't a good argument because that wasn't the original invitation, and because you're putting them in a very uncomfortable position having to decide whether to continue to go or not.

For context, I've spoken at over 100 conference events. There are very significant differences in terms of the keynote speakers and regular speakers — generally in compensation, status, time, and prominence, at least for conferences that are larger than community events. Not all of these may not be obvious to attendees, but overall it's a fairly serious snub to pull the rug out from under someone like this.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#57
post #27
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see evidence that there is more drama in the Rust community than in other communities. Posts with Rust in the title just have better chances to make it to the HN frontpage.

Similar things might happen in other communities but Rust drama seems much more visible, and this isn't because of HN bias - the foundation having weird guidelines, controversy around governance, prominent people in the community badmouthing other languages in bad faith, now this. It's quite ugly.

I also think part of it is rust’s unique and complex governance model. Python, Go, C++, Ruby and Nodejs all had (mostly) a single leader who was in charge of the project for the first few years and who set the tone for the decisions which came after. If there was drama like this in Python, Guido would step in and that would have been that.

Rust has no leader - and as far as I can tell, it never had a leader. Rust is a motley crew of people who disagree about what rust is and what it’s trying to be fighting it out in unreadable GitHub issue comments.

Who is responsible for the decisions that led to this drama? It sounds like it’s some nameless committee that made bad choices here. But committees of people with mixed political skills don’t average out to being an effective organisation.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#58
post #8
post #7

> as best as I understand it, because of the content of JeanHeyd's blog post on reflection in Rust. I'm having trouble finding it. Can anyone link this post?

I believe, this is it: https://soasis.org/posts/a-mirror-for-rust-a-plan-for-generi...

Thanks!

Re: Why I Left Rust

#59
post #28

[flagged]

Perhaps there are barriers preventing it from working organically, and some external impetus is beneficial to speed up the non-white representation?

There's nothing inherently more of a barrier to non-white speakers than other (white speakers) - tech is hard and people find it interesting.

That's it, that's the basis to almost all popular talks in tech.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#60
post #10

I've been to plenty of conferences over the years, and I never really knew who was a "keynote speaker" or "only" a "speaker". Does anyone pay attention to this? You give a talk. People show up. They clap at the end. Does it really matter what some title on some conference website is? The communication was perhaps a bit more confusing and hectic than it should have been, but does that really matter? Is that really a b…

Giving a keynote is being honoured by the event organisers. You've been specifically invited to talk. You're the headliner of the event. It may not matter to you as a listener, but I expect it would matter to you if you were asked to give such a talk.

To have that taken away because you voiced a technical opinion some people didn't agree with is petty and childish. It wasn't even a political opinion, and it was public before he was voted on and invited.

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