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Why I Left Rust

jntrnr.com

271–280 of 880 posts

Re: Why I Left Rust

#271
post #77

Wait. Let me get this straight. Someone is an expert in this field. They're asked to speak at RustConf after a leadership vote. They've also written an article about reflection in Rust - a purely technical thing that is already pretty widely disliked conceptually. (EDIT: the talk was about this, but it's also compile time reflection and came with the usual disclaimer that it was not representative of any of the Rust…

Rust leadership have a lot to reflect on.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it bad of me to say I really just don’t care? If he did the talk. If he did it as a keynote. If someone else is “leaving rust” because of it? It all seems so fabulously irrelevant, I really struggle to understand why: 1) I should care (I don’t, currently) 2) People are coming out of the woodwork to criticise the rust team / foundation whatever when they’re not involved. 3) Why people having emotions (eg. The perso…

Cause and Effect. You say "Rust is great". Why? Because People who work together effectively created Rust. And people working together have created most of the other things that are great. So if you want Rust, better Rust or more Rusts, then you may want to care whether the Rust organization will continue to work together effectively. My 0.02 is that we live in a time where we are losing site of communities and focus…

Or maybe Rust is great because Graydon was (presumably still is) an exceptionally skilled language designer and implementor. An increased focus on individuals makes sense to me because advances in technology give individuals more power, and it makes sense to me to minimize the overhead of coordination by making the most of that power to accomplish greater things with fewer people.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#273
post #74

Is this the same group who conjured up that _top-notch_ trademark policy? If so, how would the community go about removing them?

> Is this the same group who conjured up that _top-notch_ trademark policy?

No, which is mentioned in the blog post that caused the OP's resignation:

"As the Rust Foundation had trouble with its trademark rollout and the Rust Project presented itself as the capable group that can do the right thing, I find myself in the opposite situation here. The Rust Foundation has handled the grant work with utmost grace, respect, and professionalism for myself and Shepherd’s time. Contrarily, the Rust Project deigned to effectively pass several mandates down through an opaque process that affected me, while refusing to air to-this-minute unknown grievances with the direction of the Compile-Time Midterm Report."

https://thephd.dev/i-am-no-longer-speaking-at-rustconf-2023

Re: Why I Left Rust

#274
post #88
post #77

Wait. Let me get this straight. Someone is an expert in this field. They're asked to speak at RustConf after a leadership vote. They've also written an article about reflection in Rust - a purely technical thing that is already pretty widely disliked conceptually. (EDIT: the talk was about this, but it's also compile time reflection and came with the usual disclaimer that it was not representative of any of the Rust…

Much less weight should be given to someone "feeling uncomfortable" Rust the language is pretty good but the community around it has become really off-putting. The thick veneer of empathy and compassion quickly devolves into "idiot compassion" and emotional blackmail. Even the linked post contains the following: "I left because when I felt JeanHeyd's pain and disappointment at being mistreated and betrayed, my heart…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Left Rust

#275

This is certainly strangely phrased. The version I got from another member was that the content of the talk was to be about a proposed feature that may not actually end up in Rust (in my view it likely would not), and having that be the keynote talk would imply to a lot of people that it would end up in Rust and put the language in an uncomfortable position where something other than the feature's merit would be push…

That may be completely true and a justifiable reason to change the decision, but it also is largely irrelevant. Preferably such concerns should have been raised prior to the vote. If they were and the vote was still to issue the invitation then that should have been the end of it. If it wasn't raised prior to the vote such concerns should have been brought back to the voting body and a re-vote taken. The decision of that vote should have them been the final word. Instead the decision of the voting body was subverted. That is the main issue.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#277
post #181
post #143

As someone who doesn't follow very closely, the amount of drama around Rust seems to be something unseen among open source projects before. Is it that BDFL-based governance just works better, or do people have higher expectations from Rust community than from, say, Linux one?

Ruby's Matz counts as a BFDL, does he? Because there was plenty of drama in that area...

Like what? It might I am not that interested in the language or HN is not that interested in the language, but I can't remember anything.

Re: Why I Left Rust

#278
post #74

Is this the same group who conjured up that _top-notch_ trademark policy? If so, how would the community go about removing them?

What is the deal with trademarks and rust? See a lot of people talking about it...

The Rust Foundation used a (per their excuse) "boilerplate" trademark policy. Somehow, a "boilerplate" trademark policy included terms about bearing arms (which has nothing to do with trademark, and is a concerning overreach regardless of how you feel about firearms) and other nonsense. The bullshit extended to "allowing" the community to use Ferris (to be clear, Ferris was already public domain and they had no say over it to begin with).

Re: Why I Left Rust

#280
post #266
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much less weight should be given to someone "feeling uncomfortable" Rust the language is pretty good but the community around it has become really off-putting. The thick veneer of empathy and compassion quickly devolves into "idiot compassion" and emotional blackmail. Even the linked post contains the following: "I left because when I felt JeanHeyd's pain and disappointment at being mistreated and betrayed, my heart…

This whole exchange feels off. Essentially, the underlying spat is over a strong technical disagreement, but it is being prosecuted in this weirdly stylized language of emotion and abuse. I have no idea how something like this can be overcome so long as the core Rust community feels this is an acceptable way to handle things. Clearly this is something which extends beyond the immediate leadership team.

The problem is that the strong technical disagreement was not brought up the many times it could have! Instead the stick was stuck in the bike wheels way after the bike was moving forward at a decent speed.

Though “downgrading keynote to talk” is obviously not the same as an outright disinvite, the fact that the original invitee asked explicitly about this content being pre-RFC (giving rust leadership the out to resolve this amicably!), just makes it hard for me to say “oh this makes sense”.

Perhaps this is inevitable in some sense if the critique is not brought up earlier. But it’s something that feels really avoidable if people were more honest about their own feelings on other peoples work.

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