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> it also skews communist. Interesting claim. Care to substantiate it a bit ?
Even more interesting is the implication that the Rust project governance and structure is somehow more socialist than other large OSS projects.
The Rust project has a burnout problem
221–230 of 258 posts
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Or does everyone care, but some hold themselves to impossibly high standards? That's your answer right there. Do you know the age old saying "That is above my paygrade." ? It means you shouldn't care more than what you are paid to do, which in turn will hopefully prevent you from burning out. >I don't know how to separate "lower standards" and "stop caring". You need to remember that your personal satisfaction ("I d…
That explains how to set time boundaries, that's easy, set a timer, use the clock, etc. It's a mechanical process to adhere to time limits. I'm thinking about things like finding millions of real user passwords in the test database. I complain and push and eventually we delete all the passwords from the database which breaks everyone's test build and in the end I don't make any friends. Did I care to much? I harmed m…
Again, you need to consider what you are paid to do.
Are you paid to care about "finding millions of real user passwords in the test database"? About caring how or whether your code is organized? About what should be happening in a unit test?
If you are paid to care about it, absolutely do so because that's your job. If you aren't, though, at most you should inform someone who is paid to care about it and then forget about it because it's not your concern.
Life is short and there is only so many waking hours in a day, so we need to budget them accordingly. If you can't bring yourself to be less passionate about your work even though you realize it's actually causing you and your coworkers problems, perhaps it's a sign you need to change professions entirely.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see anything offensive in this: > And the reality is that there are no absolute guarantees. Ever. The "Rust is safe" is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety. Never has been. Anybody who believes that should probably re-take their kindergarten year, and stop believing in the Easter bunny and Santa Claus. It's an exaggeration. Means that he disagrees with people who blindly repeat something that,…
We probably won't get much further going back and forth on this. For what it's worth, you seem very reasonable, I've appreciated your comments for a long time, and I'm sure we'd get along fine if we were to work together. I think you could let Linus off the hook by trying to find the kernel of truth as you suggest, and that seems to be the way key Rust team members work. There's been plenty of needless rancor in HN c…
> I'm personally impressed by this, but wouldn't be surprised if it contributed to the burnout.
I think that people who contribute to languages are of a certain psychological type. They are generous, nice, kind, they want to contribute and are not interested in the social and people drama. They are a special breed of people whom I admire.
At the same time, and as you point out, that makes them more vulnerable to burnout because the social / people drama always creeps in, and they seem less well equipped to deal with it (though I've known of very impressive exceptions).
Personally I found out that bottling up negative emotions is futile; they inevitably erupt and the longer you have bottled them up, the more violent the explosion and the worse the ramifications for your mental health.
That's my main reason for not mincing words anymore. I prioritize my mental health. I am OK if that means I part ways with people and companies. I was a victim of FOMO for most of my conscious life; I want to live my remaining years being more at peace.
> Maybe the better play here, especially with asynchronous communication, is to expect people come back to their message draft when they are not so pissed/emotionally triggered and then snip out tangential emotional crap.
Obviously that's best but I can bet each and every one of us has been in a situation where they knew they had to do that and still didn't. :D Myself included, not proud of some of my comments on HN during Corona time...
But expecting most people to be like that? Super tall order, turns out. :(
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> We probably won't get much further going back and forth on this.
Likely not, but I am grateful that you entertained it as much as you did. :)
> For what it's worth, you seem very reasonable, I've appreciated your comments for a long time, and I'm sure we'd get along fine if we were to work together.
That's an extremely surprising and very warm message that I couldn't predict if I lived for 1000 years. Thank you! Still very surprised and your message is definitely the highlight of my day now.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#224This 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.…
Amen. Especially on open source projects where just enough people use it to have an active user base, but not enough where you have a good stable of contributors.
I’ve burned myself out on a handful of projects like this and also why I haven’t started any new ones lately. It’s very tiring (doubly so if maintaining open source isn’t part of your paid job, so you’re doing it on your free time).
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
^ exactly the type of person i was talking about. how is this considered anything other than troll behaviour? also, there are no spelling mistakes in my comment. perhaps consider learning about how words are spelled in british english vs american english? :)
> how is this considered anything other than troll behaviour? You're exactly right, deliberately not using capitalization is akin to trolling. Trolling is fun for the troll but it isn't that popular on HN unfortunately.
> ...deliberately not using capitalization is akin to trolling.
This just sounds like a self-troll, if you really think this
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
That explains how to set time boundaries, that's easy, set a timer, use the clock, etc. It's a mechanical process to adhere to time limits. I'm thinking about things like finding millions of real user passwords in the test database. I complain and push and eventually we delete all the passwords from the database which breaks everyone's test build and in the end I don't make any friends. Did I care to much? I harmed m…
Again, you need to consider what you are paid to do. Are you paid to care about "finding millions of real user passwords in the test database"? About caring how or whether your code is organized? About what should be happening in a unit test? If you are paid to care about it, absolutely do so because that's your job. If you aren't, though, at most you should inform someone who is paid to care about it and then forget…
They say I'm paid to deliver working software, but I'm not able to do that with confidence until lots of things with the system are fixed.
Their actions, though, say that they want someone who hustles and creates bugs and then puts on a good show fixing the bugs they themselves created.
Saying it like that, I guess the solution is to just get out, but it's hard to accept "just find another job" as the solution when I'm not even employed right now.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People scan be quite entitled and want to boss everyone around and tell them the project is run wrong - if you don’t actively run at least some of them off the devs will curl up and disappear. As an Eastern European I always found fascinating how many Westerners are struggling hard with this. To me and many of my peers (and apparently to Linus Torvalds and a good chunk of the entire Nordic culture, probably?) it's…
> " Westerners are struggling hard with this [...] it's the easiest thing in the world " But why pride yourself on taking the easy way out? It isn't being honest and direct and straight to the point, it's a power move being deliberately rude/offensive/cruel hiding behind "just being honest and direct". Which only works as long as you have the power behind the powerslam putdown (in a personal project you do) and can d…
> But why pride yourself on taking the easy way out?
Meaningless question. I can prove that to you by turning it around: why choose a harder path? What is to gain? You only lose mental health. Having to grind my teeth and not telling someone they're being an arse is bad for me.
> It isn't being honest and direct and straight to the point, it's a power move being deliberately rude/offensive/cruel hiding behind "just being honest and direct".
No. That's your interpretation because you are offended. I am in "the Linus camp" and knew many others like me and him and I am telling you that this absolutely is about cutting to the chase and solving the problem at hand on the spot.
I have no motive to lie to you or anybody, nor any face to save.
If you don't believe me and keep arguing that it's "a power move" then you're arguing with fictional people and not the real ones standing in front of you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> For everyone who doesn't have that power, and needs to work with others, it's not an option.
Obviously yes, what's your point here? I don't get angry at work (where I don't have the power to tell people off) which is a double win. I got stuff to do, sometimes others get in the way, sometimes I make bad calls. Oh well, I made my peace with the fact that things can't happen as quickly as I want them to. And it's not even about "thick skin", it's more "giving up on perfectionism".
> If that's your project selection criteria - "don't be thin skinned, man up, grow a pair!" - it's not-meritocratic; like a selection based on wealth or social class or accent or nationality isn't.
The hell are you even talking about, and even bringing class / accent / nationality to the picture? It seems you just wanted to get stuff off of your chest and I was a convenient target. You're not even talking to me, again, you are talking to some fictional guy who does not exist.
> That story shape is a perfect fit for "everybody clapped" meme, you feel superior to the stupid women who didn't even think of this power move, and wait for your applause.
Your snark does not change the undeniable fact that I gave them advice that would have helped them with their mental health. Whether they accept it or not is on them. Those who didn't accept it also taught me a good lesson: to mind my own business and only give advice if I am asked to. It was a valuable life lesson that I am utilizing often (though definitely not always).
And yes, some people were mind blown... though they did not clap. :D You got one thing right at least.
> Cutting off the network and getting a reputation as difficult to be friends/work with risks a lot more for women than it does for you.
Context matters a lot here. I was talking about completely optional interactions where zero work / money / influence was involved. They were "buddies" for 10+ years and their main goal was to basically outdo each other. Extremely toxic and I pointed that out to them. Some of them listened and said it felt very liberating to just stop. The rest I was not interested in communicating further with because they had a tendency to bring the same drama to our extremely casual communications, which naturally led to them fading away with time.
> That "I'm colder, more vicious, than you so I win. Empathy and emotions are weakness." is so ... last season.
For the third time: you are not even talking about me. I am not cold at all, I simply learned to pick my battles. Seriously no idea what made you explode with so many assumptions, it must be somebody in your past and I probably reminded you of them. You should probably go talk to them though, not me.
> Again, fine for your personal project, but having a shouty vicious bouncer is turning away the porentially useful contributions of unknown people who don't want to fight their way into that kind of workplace.
Nowhere did I even implied I want a "bouncer" or that he/she must be "shouty". Stop projecting (4th time now).
Also that phrase of yours reeks of FOMO. I am sick and tired of being a victim of FOMO. Somebody doesn't like that I called them out for being entitled and spamming my OSS project's issue tracker and as a result they go away and won't contribute anything ever? Cool! Win for everyone.
You conflate a very classic case of "fear of missing out" with "showing rude a-holes the door".
> Consider @dang here at HN doesn't take the easy way out of shouting people down
I have considered him and other moderators a long time ago and found that I don't have what it takes to be a moderator, I don't want to have it and I am very fine with that. I am impressed by people who manage to keep the peace without alienating anyone except the biggest detractors but this is a non-goal for me, especially in the open-source contributing scene. I don't moderate forums and don't want to, and I'd be terrible at it. Again, I pick my battles.
> Trying to build a community of disparate people is much harder than being a dictator who can tell disagreeable people to piss off.
Another non-goal for me. When I start doing more open-source I'll be looking for people who contribute astute observations ("You made mistake X in file Y") or code. If somebody politely asks "is this feature on the roadmap?" I'll also politely say "yes but it's a low priority for me, what's your use-case?" and we can continue the interaction from there.
But, somebody doing a drive-by saying "I tried your project and it couldn't do X, your project sucks lol" then I have zero qualms blocking them and removing whatever they posted.
Did they have the worst day this year? I don't care. I had days after which I wondered if I even want to continue living, and nobody around me was none the wiser. They only saw a very tired guy who wasn't chatty, nothing else.
I can protect people from my bad moods and bad days. I expect all people I interact with to do the same. And I am very fine with cutting off those that can't do it.
---
No idea why you fixated on me as some sort of an enemy but you have aimed wrongly. Severely so.
What I was saying is that I don't feel the need to smile politely at a-holes and use a soft language. And I don't. The rest is a plethora of projections from your side.
That's one side of the coin. The other side is: if you are Linus, you have heard the same dumb questions or obviously wrong assertions, thousands of times. It's absolutely normal to start telling people to go RTFM and stop talking without thinking things through and without doing the proper due diligence. Ask anyone working in retail.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
rust's CI is quite extensive actually; there's a talk on it here: https://www.pietroalbini.org/blog/shipping-a-compiler-every-... CI is good. more tests are good. but there's a limit to how much they can catch. here is an example: there is an internal type checking API called [`resolve_vars_if_possible`]( https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_infer/... ). this needs to be called on the output of almos…
hm, is it possible to ... add these trivial-by-look-but-hard-to-script things to a checklist as an auto-comment to PRs? is there a list of these? anyway, thanks for writing this post, and for featuring that awesome message/art/logo/thing at the end \m/
yes, it's possible! that list doesn't exist today but i would love to create it. i wrote a draft a few years ago before shifting to other work; someone recently expressed interest in reviving that project: https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc-dev-guide/pull/1463
<3 i'm glad you enjoyed it
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see anything offensive in this: > And the reality is that there are no absolute guarantees. Ever. The "Rust is safe" is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety. Never has been. Anybody who believes that should probably re-take their kindergarten year, and stop believing in the Easter bunny and Santa Claus. It's an exaggeration. Means that he disagrees with people who blindly repeat something that,…
We probably won't get much further going back and forth on this. For what it's worth, you seem very reasonable, I've appreciated your comments for a long time, and I'm sure we'd get along fine if we were to work together. I think you could let Linus off the hook by trying to find the kernel of truth as you suggest, and that seems to be the way key Rust team members work. There's been plenty of needless rancor in HN c…
And, talking about condescending / emotionally triggered, apparently I attracted an interesting reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39033023
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
That explains how to set time boundaries, that's easy, set a timer, use the clock, etc. It's a mechanical process to adhere to time limits. I'm thinking about things like finding millions of real user passwords in the test database. I complain and push and eventually we delete all the passwords from the database which breaks everyone's test build and in the end I don't make any friends. Did I care to much? I harmed m…
Again, you need to consider what you are paid to do. Are you paid to care about "finding millions of real user passwords in the test database"? About caring how or whether your code is organized? About what should be happening in a unit test? If you are paid to care about it, absolutely do so because that's your job. If you aren't, though, at most you should inform someone who is paid to care about it and then forget…
I agree with your comments a lot, just want to point out that questions like these:
> Are you paid to care about "finding millions of real user passwords in the test database"?
...are never clearly answered, in 99% of all jobs everywhere.