by SmileyKeith on 5/28/23, 7:28 PM with 317 comments
by rustthrow on 5/28/23, 7:39 PM
yes! it does!
we can't keep framing everything as race, gender, or orientation related. people have to have basic filters for what the most important issue is in a situation. stop falling back to "easy" outs or making sweeping statements about the "deeper systemic problem".
there are plenty of social problems which can't be solved by attaching every motive to every situation
by d3nj4l on 5/28/23, 7:44 PM
by mort96 on 5/28/23, 7:49 PM
Any group who decides to fork Rust probably isn't in a position of power to turn the whole Rust Project and Rust Foundation into something less messy. Without knowing any of the specifics about this "crablang" fork, creating a well-resourced, thoughtfully governed fork is often a pretty good solution to stewardship issues, and sometimes, new governance structures and procedures can even be ported back into the original project (see node.js vs io.js). Writing it off as "an enormous waste of time" where the people involved should have "engaged in a constructive manner instead" seems disingenuous.
Not that this is a core part of the post, and this doesn't detract from the overall message.
by cookieperson on 5/28/23, 7:50 PM
Sometimes it's better to drop out and start something new. An unofficial convention would be fantastic.
I'm sick of the clout chasing in these niche tech areas, it always drowns out the real passion and all the fun. The passion that fosters a healthy community and technological success.
Sometimes I wish a personality test was common for these ad hoc governance type positions (not just rust but with any OSS software). Not to exclude people but to decide if things are balanced. The people who want nothing to do with these systems often should be the ones figuring it out, but the people leaving trails of bodies behind them to plant their flag should be nowhere near them.
Thanks for sticking up for the people resigning and framing the bullshit in a realistic way. Also thanks for staying positive and I hope you keep blogging!
by iknowstuff on 5/28/23, 7:34 PM
by ummonk on 5/28/23, 8:09 PM
Nah. Bureaucracies don't even try to solve these issues if there isn't a public backlash.
by armchairhacker on 5/28/23, 8:20 PM
The best solution would be to just reverse the downgrade, and have ThePHD deliver the keynote. Send a strong message that there would be a major fallout had the Rust Project committed to their internally-made decision, but give them a chance to actually do the right thing. But that's presumably not happening, because ThePHD already left the presentation without giving them a chance to respond.
I also think the "Rust logo" controversy was over-exaggerated, since they didn't actually implement the copyright but only proposed to. And the entire mod team resigning made the mod team look bad, at least initially, because they didn't even really explain why.
The bright side of this over-reaction is that it's going to get some response from the Rust Project. Because apparently strong words are the only way to get a closed-door organization to respond appropriately. They'll post some sort of apology, and maybe it won't just be words, but they will actually become more transparent in a way that guarantees this will never happen again. Like how they all but walked back the copyright proposal and re-structured the core team following mod team resignation (or did they?).
But that's not an excuse. This sort of drama is toxic, I honestly think more toxic than the original action. Like, I feel bad for whoever made the anonymous decision to downgrade ThePHD's keynote, because even though it was wrong and hurtful, it doesn't deserve this level of vitriol. There needs to be better a way to get change than over-reacting to every mistake.
I really do hope the Rust project becomes more transparent, not only to prevent the situation from happening in the future, but the response. If everything has community input, when bad decisions happen the community can only blame themselves.
by throwawaymaths on 5/28/23, 7:43 PM
Who would have suspected this was racially motivated?
Not to defend any actions by anyone, but a keynote is an unusual place to talk about experimental feature a language is considering (unless it's a small component of a bigger update/forecast). That said once the decision was made they should have gone through with it.
by ZephyrBlu on 5/28/23, 7:54 PM
...
And it’s not like they’re really bad people, it’s more like they tend to… use back channels rather than follow process? Or they have too many responsibilities, and are unable to fulfill all of them properly? Or maybe they don’t listen enough?
Or maybe it’s not individuals, but pairs of individuals who have a feud for some reason or other (sometimes completely valid). Maybe one party feels slighted by something that happened years ago, maybe they have irreconcilable goals or technical views, or differing opinions on what belongs where."
The complaint has not been that they are bad people, it's that they are incompetent. This seems to confirm that some of the people involved are indeed incompetent.
This seems way more cut and dry than the author is portraying.
Kinda crazy that this was supposed to be a clean slate for Rust governance.
by mustache_kimono on 5/28/23, 7:47 PM
Isn't public controversy the exact atmosphere these blog posts and resignations, for lack of a better word -- drama, is meant to foment?
FTR I think Prime is just as wrong about this as anyone. The real issue was the issue re: trademark, etc. The real issue here is a failure of leadership. When you're in leadership and someone does something bad, why resign? Why not request an apology? When it's not given, why not build support for an apology? When an apology is again not forthcoming, you can publicly resign, but when you do, maybe some others will too, and you can say "10 of us signed a letter requesting an apology, including 3 members of his/her own team, and it was refused"?
Some technical people are unsurprisingly bad at leadership duties, and sometimes tactless, because these are difficult things, and we need to stop pretending they aren't.
There is no quick fix, but someone needs to do something other than just resign, because it's not leadership, and so far it's proven to do very little other than create more drama.
> It’s really more like those 4 or 5 persons. And it’s not like they’re really bad people, it’s more like they tend to… use back channels rather than follow process? Or they have too many responsibilities, and are unable to fulfill all of them properly? Or maybe they don’t listen enough?
If it's 4-5 people, it sounds more like there is a cultural problem that needs to be fixed, and if I were to guess that cultural problem is -- there perhaps need to be soft-technical PM-like, senior statesmen tracks. There needs to be someone not involved in the day to day who can listen, help settle disputes, smooth things over, and direct/focus teams, because it doesn't sound like these technical people are acting like leaders. And jerky behavior should have consequences.
by flumpcakes on 5/28/23, 8:14 PM
by denvercoder904 on 5/28/23, 8:36 PM
by adamrezich on 5/28/23, 8:25 PM
who actually perceives this situation this way? why would anyone perceive this situation this way, by default? this statement is needlessly inflammatory to a ridiculous degree—why would anyone assume overt anti-black bigotry as being the cause for any decision in any professional circle, in this year of our Lord Twenty Twenty-Three? why pour fuel on the fire like this?
this is yet another major red flag that indicates that I should stay far away from this "community"—there's clearly motivations and frames of thought at play here that don't mirror my perception of the real world in a very concerning way.
by ibejoeb on 5/28/23, 7:58 PM
by alex_lav on 5/28/23, 9:28 PM
I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there is one, but the prospect of forking a major project and being met with positivity seems to be pretty unproven.
by shri_krishna on 5/28/23, 7:46 PM
It is ridiculous that ThePrimeagen has been called out (without whom I wouldn't have taken interest in learning Rust). He has been an avid supporter of Rust until the trademark fiasco broke out. No where did he "rile up the masses" or "added fuel to the fire". The trademark draft was really bad. End of story.
> Except, it’s never just that one person, you know? Otherwise I could burn myself by outing them, and do the whole community a favor. It’s really more like those 4 or 5 persons.
This is why I find it hypocritical. In the entire document there is no mention of even one person (or these group of insiders) who are creating these issues in the community. However, the one outsider who has been vocally supporting Rust (even made an entire Rust course on Frontend Masters) is being targeted.
Should tell you everything there is to tell about how the community has devolved.
by paddw on 5/28/23, 8:21 PM
Python is the main example I can think of after graduating from governance via BDFL, but is there any other new language which has achieved the same level of popularity as Rust?
So far, most of the drama seems to have been tangential to actual language features, so they at least deserve some credit for keeping technical aspects of development mostly on track.
by FrankWilhoit on 5/28/23, 8:14 PM
The original sin of C was to release an informal [under]specification. Kernighan and Ritchie failed, catastrophically, to foresee the phenomenon of management pressure to release/productionize software written by people who only half-knew the language. K&R C (or each of its de facto, platform-bound reference implementations) was at least simple enough to learn. None of its successors have been. Verifiable or maintainable software cannot be written in any language that is too complex to understand (or that is in any way underspecified). Verifiable or maintainable software cannot be written in any language that its developer has only half learned. And software that is not both verifiable and maintainable is worse than no software at all.
by pdimitar on 5/28/23, 9:42 PM
Start naming and shaming people, let the internet have its field day and let's all go home. We all know people will reconverge at one point anyway. We all also know that nobody will get harmed regardless of all the drama.
I expect much more from adult people. Go drink some tea and have a 3-hour walk with your dog or partner or a friend, deliberately don't touch the computer for 24h and let's see how differently you'll react.
Also, injecting identity politics in a programming language foundation has been a mistake from the get go. Sounds like opportunism.
My code of conduct would be "don't be an a-hole no matter what race or sexual orientation somebody has -- and anyone being a d-bag will get shown the door, no exceptions". That's plenty enough and most people out there have enough common sense to know what you mean when you say it.
Also can we recognize that forks of popular programming languages NEVER truly take off.
So yeah, take a few deep breaths, disengage for a while and you might be surprised of the different thoughts that come to you after.
Let's tone down the drama already, this already became super embarrassing for all parties.
by serial_dev on 5/28/23, 8:18 PM
Just like with the trademark policy fiasco just a month ago (which was also not the first Rust Drama), every community member - from speakers to organizers and regular language users - is confused, frustrated, feeling unappreciated with very slow official response and clarification.
I don't want witch hunting, I understand some of the people involved are volunteers, but if there is a drama every month, someone is doing something wrong and all we see from the outside is that someone acts shady and there is no consequences.
I'm not saying they are evil people, I don't hate anyone, I just think that they should do something else with their precious volunteer time.
It's not a witch hunt to show someone the door.
by nmarkn on 5/28/23, 9:28 PM
https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235124.html
The Rust situation seems to be instance the woke purging each other, Soviet style.
by rch on 5/28/23, 8:00 PM
Is there a concise roadmap that's easy to share?
by hurril on 5/28/23, 8:16 PM
Come back tomorrow. Nothing has happened. Please!
by mkl95 on 5/28/23, 8:26 PM
by ltbarcly3 on 5/28/23, 9:44 PM
Don't post a bunch of emotional, vague, unclear semi-accusations against people you won't even name. This is just adding to a bunch of drama with no possibility of any positive outcome.
by quantum_state on 5/28/23, 7:51 PM
by skilled on 5/28/23, 8:49 PM
I totally understand that perhaps all of this is not that big of a deal at all considering that sites like Hacker News puts tens of thousands of eyeballs on you in a split second. But if there's something I've learned from these very sites is that Rust is a respected language and these kind of fallouts reek of issues that have nothing to do with the language itself but the people that are supposedly in positions of power.
by rvz on 5/28/23, 8:03 PM
I had very high hopes on Rust, but it seems that they have to find another tiny first world issue to complain about and magnify it into a giant nothing.
Admittedly, this whole saga is more entertaining than the average pantomime but even that has its limits of banana slip-ups. There is a time where this 'entertainment' just turns into pure incompetence of this so-called community and its governance, which becomes very boring blazingly fast.
by jhatemyjob on 5/28/23, 8:00 PM
by all2well on 5/28/23, 8:26 PM
by 1270018080 on 5/28/23, 9:18 PM
by kristoff_it on 5/28/23, 9:36 PM
Nobody wants to name the one guy who Secret Hitler'd the keynote, but man let's name call a streamer unaffiliated with the project as soon as we can because he read the original blog post on stream and said 'this is bad'.
by zibarn on 5/28/23, 8:34 PM
by Patrickmi on 5/29/23, 5:18 AM
by deadletters on 5/28/23, 9:20 PM
That voice in your head is you wanting to do the right thing.
by late2part on 5/28/23, 8:02 PM
by adelarsq on 5/28/23, 7:55 PM
Now working with Rust I have the same feelings as working with Java...
by lucasfcosta on 5/28/23, 8:42 PM
Although I think this saga is a bit too dramatic, maybe that's why Rust is such a great language: people care a lot.
by xdennis on 5/28/23, 8:10 PM
by tibbydudeza on 5/29/23, 11:02 AM
Thank god we have a benevolent dictator for Linux and supporting actors (long may they live), really can't imagine the mess Linux it would have become if we had a committee.
by rowanG077 on 5/28/23, 8:42 PM
by fds98324jhk on 5/29/23, 2:46 PM
In Sebastian, FL, former public officials have been convicted and sentenced to incarceration time for doing this.
by h2odragon on 5/28/23, 8:21 PM
Call it "Dust". Mascot could be a crab louse.
by badrabbit on 5/28/23, 8:36 PM
by phendrenad2 on 5/28/23, 8:27 PM
by carpet_wheel on 5/28/23, 11:02 PM
by sacnoradhq on 5/28/23, 10:50 PM