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The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

rustfoundation.org

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Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#81

Post by ModernMech »

eeeesh wrote: post #68
quamserena wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all fun and games until a “politically neutral” decision is made by a programming language foundation to refer to all trans people using they/them. How would that make you feel?

The most politically neutral decision in this case would be to let people refer to others with whichever pronouns accord to the speaker's beliefs, without reprimand.

Yeah that's the fastest way to breed animosity in these communities. Insisting on calling someone by a name they don't use for themselves is extremely antagonistic.

r/programminglanguages has the right idea: put a pride flag in the logo and a lot of these problems just sort themselves out.

  the flag logo has proven surprisingly effective at weeding out bigots. Not just in this thread or the previous one, but also in the moderator mail: we've had at least several instances of mouth breathers writing rants along the lines of "How dare you use colors in your logo!" (that's a very nice "translation" of what's actually written in those cases). Similarly, several comments in this thread have been removed and their authors banned, due to comments that boil down to "I'm not a bigot, I just hate LGBTQ+ people". This will not change, based on the simple premise that such people aren't worth having around in any community, and these people don't contribute anything of value anyway.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/17gcv...

And it does work out well, the discussions stay on topic, LGBTQ issues aren't really a community topic despite the flag. Here's how that works out in practice, from today:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/1onr6...

Someone says "he", they're corrected with "she", and that's the end of it. In more toxic communities where people are encouraged to use whatever pronouns they want, that simple interaction because a whole thing, where eventually one person calls the other delusional, the other calls them a bigot, and then no one is talking about programming languages. It's an eternal struggle, and for many people who build and maintain programming languages, they prefer to kick out the bigot rather than be called delusional, so everyone can get back to talking about programming languages. Still, there are plenty of online spaces, especially language spaces, where LGBTQ people are made to feel excluded. People upset with the flag or pronouns can join one of those communities, and everyone is happy.

(If anyone is wondering what kind of comments, they're usually veiled or not so veiled threats along the lines of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45727677. If the mere presence of the flag keeps people like this out, that's fine by me.)

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#82

Post by fishmicrowaver »

NobodyNada wrote: post #77
Macha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust came first, so people who didn't like Rust flocked to Zig as an alternative, and were keen to promote it as an alternative to Rust by criticising Rust, as wider usage would provide them more of an ecosystem to use in their own Zig programs. People who were happy with Rust didn't have same need to criticise Zig in online spaces as Rust is the established player in the C alternatives space. (Though Rust is on the…

> people who didn't like Rust flocked to Zig as an alternative, and were keen to promote it as an alternative to Rust by criticising Rust, as wider usage would provide them more of an ecosystem to use in their own Zig programs. > People who were happy with Rust didn't have same need to criticise Zig in online spaces as Rust is the established player in the C alternatives space. (Though Rust is on the other side when…

That's one hell of a post. I'm reading that Rust deserved to be evaluated on its technical merits (which I'm happy with), but Zig has some community issues in closer examination?

I've looked at the major rust implements from big corp. It's all Arc, copy/clone, and people getting fired.

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#83

Post by vacuity »

roommin wrote: post #76
vacuity wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "Rust" a homogeneous blob of beliefs that you can side with?

They didn't imply it's a homogeneous blob, but if they have beliefs they state and enact one can agree with those.

But who is "they"? What does it mean to be "on the same side as Rust"? What if Rust maintainers disagree? Being on a side suggests an unwillingness to part ways, which is more commitment than merely agreeing to a set of beliefs at some time. If Rust is a worthy rock in the political sphere for the moment, then there is no trouble in believing alike, but only for the moment. Every actor should prove themselves constantly, not to be orbited.

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#84

Post by vacuity »

escobar_west wrote: post #55
weird_trousers wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with some points, but I share the feeling in terms of "failed promises". The fact that most well-known Rust crates are becoming huge bloat are becoming a problem to me, which is something that has been critized years again by the community itself. As an example, I still do not understand why simple HTTP crates require more than 50 to 70 dependencies to execute a simple GET call...

So let me get this straight. You want the benefit of being able to re-use other peoples' codebase by using an HTTP crate you didn't write. But you don't want those people to also use that benefit of depending on other crates. Insisting that you should depend on code which itself has no dependencies is a bit hypocritical if you ask me. If you want a simple HTTP crate that doesn't have dependencies, you should follow y…

I think this is rather hostile. There is moderation from not using dependencies or from using too many dependencies. I don't think GP is advocating for no dependencies, either. Even vendoring and pinning dependencies provides benefits.

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#85

Post by vacuity »

eeeesh wrote: post #68
quamserena wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all fun and games until a “politically neutral” decision is made by a programming language foundation to refer to all trans people using they/them. How would that make you feel?

The most politically neutral decision in this case would be to let people refer to others with whichever pronouns accord to the speaker's beliefs, without reprimand.

Morality partially stems from autonomy (in the sense that "I should be able to act as I please"). According to autonomy, a person should be able to act freely, and two people should be able to interact similarly. One person's policy will be judged by any other, who is free to act by a distinct policy. But autonomy alone doesn't make for a good person, or a good society. The other factor in morality is non-hypocrisy (in the sense that "I should act how I say I should act").

I've laid out a neutral response. Of course I have my personal beliefs, as one does, but I speak here without pretense. Believe what you will.

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#86

Post by vacuity »

thunderfork wrote: post #74
Oper_52 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it would be best not to spread unverified speculation about possible reasons for someone choosing to die by suicide.

There was no speculation about a causal relationship in the post you're replying to

In fact, by my reading, that post is saying that the actual cause is immaterial in the face of campaigning that essentially tried to be the cause.

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#87

Post by vacuity »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #23
echelon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Non-political community" is an oxymoron No it's not. I'm an LGBT person with a trans partner and I find many codes of conduct to be chastising and purposefully finger pointing to conservative people. A lot of them are basically, "your religious teachings or cultural upbringing aren't welcome here" I don't agree with religious texts, but that's what you're wagging in their face with some of the CoCs. Leave it at "d…

> You can (and often must) work with people you don't agree with. Life's for too short to force people to do this, and ideally we should make it as feasible as possible for as many people as possible to never have to do this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45819079 (read my comment here first)

Not quite your fault, but the framing of "people you don't agree with" juxtaposed with the implicit statement of "people who promote hate" (or similar) doesn't make for a clear discussion. To be clear, those two types are well separated. If someone is of the latter type, really truly they are, then they can be removed without further ado (and I think GP would agree). I think the situations that are less clear cut will make people in good faith fight.

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#88

Post by vacuity »

abenga wrote: post #33
pessimizer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a crazy notion. If I have to like everybody to work with them, we can't have a civilization because I don't like most people. I like some people. Everybody else I work with if they're willing to work with me. Saying that we all have to agree with each other is basically giving up on the political project entirely, and going back to strongman rulers who organize by demanding conformity. Very relevant in these…

There is a wide gulf between "I don't like this person" and "this person's whole existence should be a crime".

I think that many people leaning toward the latter are "merely" misguided, though I certainly don't think that to correct them would be easy. However, I genuinely think some people are taken to be hateful when they aren't. Discussion of such cases should not be taken with the presumption that the accusations of hate are true, because then truth gives way to opinion. A good cause is a good cause, but realization invites bias.

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#89

Post by vacuity »

stusmall wrote: post #66
fishmicrowaver wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-negligible from what perspective? Is this group of people somehow holding back unbridled adoption and enthusiasm for Rust? Is it possible for tech people to drum up excitement for a newer language without it being political just because you insist that it is?

> Non-negligible from what perspective? Non-negligible in that it happens in almost every thread about rust. As in it isn't a rare occurrence.

I think I see most Rust threads here. Perhaps there is a low presence in most threads, but I didn't notice a significant rate as the baseline. Though this thread is burning up, certainly.

Re: The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund

#90

Post by vacuity »

okanat wrote: post #59
boje wrote: post #31

Why doesn't Zig attract the same sort of lukewarm response that Rust does from parts of communities?

This will be anecdotal. However both in the academia and in the semi-professional space, I encountered certain type of programmer who is a bit more "religiously minded" (both in the technical space and quite often in their personal beliefs too). Unix, although being a quite commercial project, its academic origins attracted a kind of followers, who believe there is a certain purity we can reach with computers or soft…

Your comment is really quite interesting. Thanks! What you're saying all sounds plausible to me.

I note that, while different circles may call for "purity" (fans of, e.g., Unix, Lisp, or Haskell), I think honestly pursuing the purity of writing programs to achieve one's goals means rejecting dogmatism and accepting pragmatism. Adherence to beliefs is fine if, and only if, the beliefs are fundamentally justified....

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