Turns out there are some resource management problems even rustc can’t solve.
That's quite uncool of you, even if it's supposed to be a joke
The Rust project has a burnout problem
21–30 of 258 posts
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#22This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. The only thing not included was the comments from overly entitled users that saps whatever morale and energy you have left. Probably best he did not include that though as that is what all discussion would be about. I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem. The way he described it is very on point though.…
This generalises to any idealism. You would not think veterinarians to be at elevated risk of suicide, but they are [0], and I think the reasons are similar: a moral dilemma caused by the mismatch between expectation and grim reality which ultimately leads to burnout and desperation. The other extreme is a "bullshit job", work that you don't enjoy and which serves no meaningful purpose. [0] https://www.bbc.com/workli…
I 100% understand why veterinarians are in a crisis.
We had to let our pupper go a few weeks ago. The vet had to basically sit there and watch us while we processed the fact that we were about to pay her to kill our best friend.
For us, it was the worst day we had experienced in years. For her, it was Tuesday. She had other people waiting in the room next door, and had to go from solemn to bright and cheery over the span of ten footsteps, and she has to do that every day.
Her job is often to put a very real price tag on the life of a beloved companion. "I'm sorry, but keeping him alive will be $10,000... or we can humanely put him down for much, much less."
It's grim business. Necessary, but grim.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#23> the best way to help the project is to keep contributing for it for years. to do that, you have to avoid burning out, which means you have to treat yourself well. When I was a schoolteacher, the way I expressed this is that you have to do the job in such a way today that you're capable of doing it again tomorrow. This did not go down well and I am no longer a teacher.
Please elaborate, on both counts.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#24Do other people react as strongly as I did to the lack of capitalisation at the start of sentences? The post is generally "well" written with good grammar and punctuation so I find it strange - it feels like a style choice. But the style choice just instinctively makes part of my brain feel like it's written by a child.
It's painful for me, apparently my brain normally uses the low frequency capitalised letters as anchor for "navigation" in big blocks of text.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#25This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. The only thing not included was the comments from overly entitled users that saps whatever morale and energy you have left. Probably best he did not include that though as that is what all discussion would be about. I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem. The way he described it is very on point though.…
Following up on my previous comment, I managed to never become fully burned out, but it required changes to myself, not the project. I had to become less emotionally invested in the project, realize I could not solve everything and step back a bit and do some other things. I guess it would be great if the project were reinforcing these ideas to its contributors to prevent burnout, but that also does not seem realistic. And "the project" is made up of others going through the same problems.
The large OSS project I contributed to thankfully had other contributors that were good role models for these behaviors and it helped seeing them disengage to do other things for a while.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#26Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#27Just close PRs that don't meet basic quality criteria, and you will go through them in no time.
Oh, but I suppose that's not compatible with the "no one left behind"-type rust manifesto.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
This generalises to any idealism. You would not think veterinarians to be at elevated risk of suicide, but they are [0], and I think the reasons are similar: a moral dilemma caused by the mismatch between expectation and grim reality which ultimately leads to burnout and desperation. The other extreme is a "bullshit job", work that you don't enjoy and which serves no meaningful purpose. [0] https://www.bbc.com/workli…
I 100% understand why veterinarians are in a crisis. We had to let our pupper go a few weeks ago. The vet had to basically sit there and watch us while we processed the fact that we were about to pay her to kill our best friend. For us, it was the worst day we had experienced in years . For her, it was Tuesday. She had other people waiting in the room next door, and had to go from solemn to bright and cheery over the…
My condolences, loosing a pet is hard. May he frolic in pile of leaves and cherish his favourite bone.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#29This is why I think that C++ will be around in the next 50 years but Rust? I can't tell.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#30This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. The only thing not included was the comments from overly entitled users that saps whatever morale and energy you have left. Probably best he did not include that though as that is what all discussion would be about. I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem. The way he described it is very on point though.…
> I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem.
Pacing and self-regulation. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Set an hours-per-week budget. Beyond that things just don’t get done. That’s okay.
If the community needs faster pace, they can consider supplying hours or dollars to fund more developers to work full-time.