[HN Gopher] Rust: The wrong people are resigning
___________________________________________________________________
Rust: The wrong people are resigning
Author : SmileyKeith
Score : 239 points
Date : 2023-05-28 19:28 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gist.github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gist.github.com)
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| In most non-profit organizations, in the absence(s) of leadership
| or courage, most of the time the more sociopathic, unreasonable,
| and stubborn people tend to glom onto power while the opposite
| move on.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Good advertisement for crablang, didn't know it was a thing.
| denvercoder904 wrote:
| It's not JeanHeyd Meneide's (PhD) first time rage quitting. He
| has a history of this. He previously rage quitted from the C++
| community and moved to the C community. I wonder where he's
| moving to next. https://youtu.be/vaLKm9FE8oo
| jeremyjh wrote:
| So we should blame the victim?
| asguy wrote:
| "You run into assholes all day? you're the asshole" - Raylan
| Givens (Justified)
| [deleted]
| ummonk wrote:
| > Part of me is very disappointed at ThePrimeagen, the Twitch
| streamer / YouTuber with whom I used to be friendly, for milking
| those controversies for every view and sub possible. For riling
| up the masses, adding fuel to the fire, creating the exact
| opposite of the climate we need to solve these issues.
|
| Nah. Bureaucracies don't even try to solve these issues if there
| isn't a public backlash.
| kristoff_it wrote:
| He also like just read the original blog post on stream, said a
| couple of things about it, mentioned that it's not good that
| this stuff is happening and moved on. Honestly I don't really
| see much milking there.
| hotfixguru wrote:
| Yeah, seems a bit weird for me to see that there. I like both
| of these guys, but Primeagen seems to be attacked a bit out
| of the blue here. He's reacting to this just like he's
| reacting to literally anything else on his channel.
|
| I also don't think it's been anything too bad, he's said his
| opinion, just like the rest. He reacts to it with energy (and
| in an entertaining way, imo), and it's impossible for him to
| not address these things as a live streamer. Ignoring it
| would be weird.
| ra1231963 wrote:
| Agreed, and to add on to what you said - this whole thing
| is confusing so he is actually doing a service of trying to
| summarize all the context for people who don't want to go
| reading a bunch of random articles or tweets.
| jokerr1212 wrote:
| [flagged]
| xdennis wrote:
| Does anyone have a impartial summary about what this is about? I
| always hate when I'm late to drama and I have no idea what anyone
| is talking about.
| maccard wrote:
| Someone was invited to speak as a keynote speaker by the rust
| team. They worked with the Rust team on the presentation, and
| seem to have been actively encouraged to do so. Shortly after,
| they were told by the conference operator that they were being
| downgraded to a regular speaker, and they blogged their
| thoughts on why they were asked, and decided to (publicly) pull
| out of speaking at all. Then a member of the rust leadership
| team said that a subgroup of the leadership team made the call
| to remove the speaker from the keynote, and as such this member
| resigned.
|
| That's my best attempt
| rustthrow wrote:
| > The recent incident with ThePHD's keynote downgrade was not
| racially motivated, thankfully, but... if that's what it looks
| like from the outside, and any form of official communication is
| still days or weeks away, does it really make a difference?
|
| 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
| tanepiper wrote:
| The last few incidents have been damaging with or without
| communication. For large companies who need stability to ship
| software - the Rust story has been one of what looks like a
| good language being destroyed by shitty leadership and shitty
| drama.
| jadamson wrote:
| If all you care about is appearances, it doesn't matter at all
| whether discrimination actually took place. If you do actually
| care about discrimination, it matters quite a lot whether it
| happened.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I think it matters in so far as people who "don't fit in" to a
| group often feel excluded from the group, and seeing people
| like you honored makes you feel more welcome. As a bunch of
| nerds surely we know what it feels like to be the odd man out.
| But what if you're the odd man out in every context except for
| your family? What if you are the only one like yourself, the
| only one who when you walk in a room people stop talking and
| shift uncomfortably? Even in a room full of nerdy outsiders,
| you're the outsider outsider. I don't believe racism entered
| into the decision. But in tossing aside an opportunity to honor
| a black engineer for their _legitimately_ earned achievements,
| you take away a chance to make that uncomfortable black
| engineer who feels outside the group a _part_ of that group,
| and _that_ is a shame. It doesn't have to be the only decision
| making criteria. But in my life, opening doors to people and
| making the uncomfortable feel comfortable is important. I at
| least remember being socially uncomfortable and feeling like no
| one is like me at many points in my life. I know how that
| feels, and I know my experience was a shadow of what a black
| person experiences daily in the US, and in tech in particular
| where they are essentially unrepresented. Y'all don't have to
| care how folks feel around you, but I was raised to love my
| neighbor, and small gestures to make entire classes of people
| feel welcome in my field when all evidence bears they're not,
| I'll take it.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Maybe the downgrade not, but the original keynote was, but we
| can only guess. I don't think it's popular to vote against a
| black person being the keynote speaker.
|
| At the same time this keynote is nowhere near as interesting as
| last year's async stabilization keynote, I think we can all
| agree on that.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| I believe the reason they are saying it doesn't matter, is that
| without a clear statement of what happened from the decision
| makers, people can speculate.
|
| One of those things people will speculate on is if this was one
| of the reasons. The fact that it is also part of the equation
| means it can't be outright ignored and so will also need to be
| addressed. On top of that, this is already an underrepresented
| group, and regardless of if it was a primary motivating factor,
| it does not help show that group that they are welcome and in
| fact harms any effort to do so.
|
| It absolutely matters if it was or was not a factor in this
| decision, but without clear information about the decision
| making process, speculation will occur, and that in and of
| itself is harmful.
| rustinator wrote:
| [flagged]
| brickteacup wrote:
| > without a clear statement of what happened from the
| decision makers, people can speculate
|
| People can always speculate whatever they want. And let's be
| honest, the kind of people who like making utterly baseless
| claims about racism will do so regardless of any official
| statements or explanations. Unless there's actual evidence of
| racial animus it's best to just ignore these silly people.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I vehemently disagree. Unless there is reason to suspect race
| is a factor, which there is none in this case, then
| discussion should move on the issue at hand, and speculation
| about racism should be discouraged or ignored. Your
| perspective, while well intentioned, is exactly the sort that
| drives needless division and suspicion in modern discourse.
| majormajor wrote:
| How do you define "reason to suspect"? E.g. what separates
| the actions that would result from your position from the
| actions that would result from a position of "there's
| nothing wrong with racism as long as it's not said aloud"?
| Established behavioral patterns? Less than that? More?
| bluejekyll wrote:
| To be clear, you do not believe that the Rust Leadership
| should make it clear how they came to this decision such
| that any speculation of other reasons can be put to bed?
|
| The fact that it's open to speculation is the exact reason
| they need to address it. Just ignoring it at this point
| doesn't seem like a good idea, does it?
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| Your "to be clear" bears no resemblance at all to what
| was written.
| [deleted]
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| No, I absolutely think they should make that clear. But
| among all the reasons they made this decision, however
| opaque things have been thus far, I think it's wrong to
| speculate that the cause is racism.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| What are you vehemently disagreeing with me about then?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| That race is a reasonable suspicion until barring further
| explanation/transparency. And additionally the "to be
| clear" refrain.
| stoniejohnson wrote:
| It might not be reasonable, but it is likely.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I vehemently disagree. The _possible_ motives of those in
| power should always be looked at with a microscope, unless
| they give us comprehensive reasons as to the decisions they
| made. Your perspective, while well intentioned, is exactly
| the sort that drives implicit bias and a disregard for
| minority considerations or reasoning that the decision
| makers don 't personally relate to.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I agree, but it seems you reworded my common with little
| deviation??
| prepend wrote:
| > The possible motives of those in power should always be
| looked at with a microscope
|
| There are myriad possible motives. Looking at them all
| without evidence is not productive. I would say that all
| credible motives and reasons should be examined. But
| speculating about every or any possible motive without
| evidence or meaning is a waste of time at best.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Speculation always devolves to a waste of time if
| extending indefinitely without reality checking. When it
| comes to people in power the speculation can, at the very
| least, encourage them to be loquacious with respect to
| the reasons for their decisions.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| If the one black guy in the entire convention had his talk
| downgraded through back-channel means, I would suspect race
| had to do with it (if only obliquely, in that often black
| peoples actions are often received in much less good faith
| than other races). If it was actually just general
| leadership incompetence I think that would be important to
| highlight. It's super weird when the only black guy gets
| sus behavior, but it's less weird if leadership has been
| sus for a while and it just happened to drive off the one
| black guy.
| theteapot wrote:
| [flagged]
| rustthrow wrote:
| I really don't agree, reading the original poster's
| experience, that we should walk away thinking that it was
| because they're black. Nor should we by default assume that's
| the case. Multiple follow-ups by people in the Rust community
| have said that the politics and behavior here are a wider
| issue with leadership.
|
| If the takeaway or speculation is that what went wrong here
| was only an issue because the speaker is black, it cheapens
| their experience. It tells other minorities that when they
| flag a problem, the root cause is their
| race/gender/orientation; that the solution is then a code of
| conduct refresh, maybe diversity training, "educating
| themselves", etc. But that is not, fundamentally, as far as
| we can see, what is wrong here. We are not respecting the
| deep issues that the OP actually did identify by projecting
| other speculative possibilities.
|
| What happened here is a problem no matter who the speaker
| was. Let's address that. If other evidence comes to light on
| the backing motivations, we can address those to, but it's
| not helpful to voluntarily pull other bad behavior that there
| is no reason to suspect here. No one can disprove a negative,
| but it's on all of us to not fall for that bait.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| > we can't keep framing everything as race, gender, or
| orientation related.
|
| No one is doing this, problem solved.
| felipellrocha wrote:
| I don't think the article is saying we should make everything
| into a question of race. Only that if Rust doesn't reply,
| people will make up their mind, and people usually devolve to
| the lowest common denominator, which, in this case, is a race
| issue.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > lowest common denominator
|
| Occam's razor and salience come in to play here too.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Oh come on already.
|
| 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.
| revskill wrote:
| [flagged]
| nomdep wrote:
| More like a mom... or a dad... or any mature adult
| proto_lambda wrote:
| In principle I can agree that Rust (like so many things in
| tech) is a bit of a sausage fest, and that women can, in my
| experience, often be better leaders than men especially when it
| comes to emotional/communication matters like with this whole
| mess.
|
| The wording "real woman" however immediately smells like an
| attempt to exclude trans women, of whom there are quite a few
| in the Rust community - even if that wasn't your intention at
| all, it might explain at least some of the downvotes though.
| revskill wrote:
| The reasoning is, i don't trust a man in this position can
| resolve all the conflict. Let woman do that.
|
| The "real" in this case doesn't mean anything, it's just for
| the sake of avoiding "arbitrary"
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| I don't want to add to the drama here, but I would suggest to
| Amos to just say what you want to say. If saying it would burn
| you to the point you would have to leave the community, find a
| way to say what you need to say to address the situation that
| doesn't burn you out of the community. If there is absolutely no
| way to address the issue where you aren't chased out then take a
| hard look at your own communication style, talk it out with
| trusted people who can give you perspective, and finally take a
| hard look at whether this is even a community that is worth being
| a part of.
|
| 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.
| [deleted]
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Honestly this is a very bad look for both sides. But resigning
| over this tops everything. You don't resign at the first sign
| something is wrong, you try to help fix it. Sure if that doesn't
| work resign. No social environment is perfect and mistakes will
| always be made.
| lucasfcosta wrote:
| I wonder whether there's a correlation between how much people
| care about somewhat small issues and the quality of Rust.
|
| Although I think this saga is a bit too dramatic, maybe that's
| why Rust is such a great language: people care a lot.
| [deleted]
| zackees wrote:
| [dead]
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| > downgrade was not racially motivated, thankfully
|
| 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.
| gishbunker wrote:
| If someone is in the minority, it's totally reasonable to ask,
| "could their minority status be a factor in their
| disenfranchisement?"
|
| Then you look at the data, and in this case come to the
| conclusion, "no, it was not a factor."
|
| That seems healthy and normal, it's not outrage bait to
| acknowledge that yes, sometimes minorities _are_ at a
| disadvantage or are under represented.
|
| It's just as fallacious to say "of course race was a factor" as
| it is to say "of course race was not a factor". Much better to
| ask openly, evaluate the data, and make an informed conclusion.
| nomel wrote:
| > sometimes minorities are at a disadvantage or are under
| represented
|
| What does "under represented" mean, in a small, hopefully
| merit based, org?
| jcranmer wrote:
| > 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).
|
| Quite the opposite, I believe. Since a keynote is seen by a
| dramatically larger slice of the audience, it's a good slot for
| talks meant to provoke thoughts and discussion, even if that
| discussion isn't necessarily one you agree with.
| ra1231963 wrote:
| > who would have suspected this was racially motivated?
|
| For the last several years, there are many people and groups
| who have gotten tremendous positive feedback from being a
| victim. So, many people would jump to this conclusion for
| outrage, sympathy, and signaling their virtue.
|
| Thankfully, it seems it may be coming to an end now since it's
| disruptive and at odds with reality.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| > there are many people and groups who have gotten tremendous
| positive feedback from being a victim.
|
| Just making shit up to get mad about.
| icelancer wrote:
| > Thankfully, it seems it may be coming to an end now since
| it's disruptive and at odds with reality.
|
| I hope you are right. I'm less optimistic.
| chippiewill wrote:
| It's not that unusual. Herb Sutter's 2022 CppCon keynote was on
| a prototype redesign of the C++ syntax/language.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Cool, thanks to know there was precedence. _I 've_ never seen
| one, but to be fair I don't have a comprehensive experience
| seeing every keynote :)
|
| My general feeling is that keynotes are for "setting the
| tone" of the conference/conference day.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Bigger conferences tend to put two particular keynote talks
| in. Something for people to discuss among themselves over
| the course of the conference, and then something to take
| away afterwards.
|
| I watch a lot of conference videos, but I don't attend many
| conferences, I don't get value out of the so-called
| "Hallway track" and I dislike commercial air travel which
| limits where I could go anyway. I like where I live, that's
| why I bought it, so remaining here is great.
| tialaramex wrote:
| That's even one of a _long_ series of such talks Herb has
| given, about features Herb thinks C++ should have, but it
| doesn 't, and in all but one case those proposals Herb made
| were not adopted in the C++ standard.
|
| If your language isn't intending to just remain stuck forever
| in its current state, a conference is a reasonable place to
| explain a proposed direction so that other people know where
| you think it should go. Not every talk has to be speculative,
| but a speculative keynote seems fine to me so long as it's
| obvious that we're not in an alternate dimension where this
| works in Rust already, which I see no sign JeanHyde was
| intending.
| toyg wrote:
| Yeah, and plenty of Python keynotes on umpteen projects to
| overcome the GIL - GIL that is still there.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| When did programming, and the choice of implementation, become
| people's identities? These endless drama sagas just makes
| everyone look very childish, from the outside. I don't think we
| would see this in other engineering fields. Embarrassing.
| euiq wrote:
| It's amazing, isn't it? People care much more about seeing
| their favorite sports team win than about actually moving
| technology forward.
| [deleted]
| d3nj4l wrote:
| In a way, I find this entire saga incredibly funny. There is _so
| much_ hand wringing and pearl clutching at something that is
| supposedly in the shadows - this cabal of four or five people
| making decisions - that it makes the entire Rust "community"
| look juvenile. This is the kind of internecine conflict I should
| see in Anime discord servers, not about a language whose
| governance involves multiple major corporations!
| twelfthnight wrote:
| Wish we had more role models these days who were willing to
| disagree with decisions and work to fix them rather than loudly
| resign or point fingers. Feels like there is a lot of pressure
| these days that if you are part of a "bad" system then _you_
| are bad, even if you are trying to improve it from the inside.
| So it's understandable people quit instead of taking on the
| burden of having to prove their "goodness", it's just a shame
| our media/algorithms lazily spread outrage rather than
| spotlight diligence and compromise.
| caust1c wrote:
| Golang has lots of good examples of design discussions
| without vitriol in their RFCs and proposals. There is the
| occasional bikeshedding and needless bickering granted, but
| it mostly stays civil and is the most mature language
| community I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Benevolent dictators make things way easier.
| euiq wrote:
| Clearly the solution is to clone Russ Cox.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| That made me laugh thanks.
| biomcgary wrote:
| I think there might be a connection between Go's pragmatism
| and the culture fostered around it and Rust's correctness
| and its culture.
|
| On the other hand, it could be that Google owning Go makes
| the bigger difference. I know that Ian Lance Taylor created
| several versions of generics that got shot down, which must
| have been frustrating. However, I don't remember hearing
| the slightest bit of internal conflict from the core team.
| (I pick on generics because it was the largest and longest
| "conflict" in Go's history.)
|
| The primary language developers/owners work at the same
| company, so presumably they have more bandwidth (behind
| closed doors) and more financial incentive to provide a
| united front. Or, they're just a pragmatic group of
| engineers with drama turned to -11.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Similarly, in the C#/.NET community, most of the drama
| fits one of the following two archetypes:
|
| 1) MS taking control of something the community doesn't
| want them taking control of
|
| 2) Important open source third party library switching to
| a proprietary license
|
| Rarely do you see drama centered around specific
| individuals like you see in the Rust or JavaScript
| communities. So I think that lends some further credence
| to your theory that the design goals of the language help
| foster specific cultures around them.
| josephg wrote:
| Almost all of the work the rust project does is like this
| too. The RFC process is pretty consistently lovely. People
| just go back and forth talking about different design
| approaches with respect and thoughtfulness. I wish
| decisions happened _faster_ , but decisions certainly get
| made and everyone is listened to.
|
| These conversations just don't make the front page of HN.
| pg_1234 wrote:
| The "don't leave, stay and fix things from the inside" pitch
| is how the political schemers try to pull the tech talent
| back into an arena where they can be worn down into
| submission, so that their skills can be co-opted by those
| whose only real talent is to steal the productivity of
| others.
|
| The only way to free a project from such entrenched rot is an
| ultimatum; "You can have the builders or the schemers, but
| not both".
| mordae wrote:
| Not just tech.
| twelfthnight wrote:
| Agree with you that in the case of entrenched rot there's
| not much that "stay and fix things from the inside" can do
| to help. I just don't think that the Rust
| community/leadership has gotten to that point. OP's blog
| seems to support that, too:
|
| > I was able to reassure myself, by checking these private
| discussion places, that there were good people, fighting
| for the right thing to be done. That things weren't
| irremediably broken. That there was hope for improvement in
| the near future.
| simplify wrote:
| Agreed. Evil wins because good does nothing. Or in this case,
| evil reigns because good resigns.
| Klonoar wrote:
| _> Wish we had more role models these days who were willing
| to disagree with decisions and work to fix them rather than
| loudly resign or point fingers._
|
| You're kind of stating this as if nobody in the Rust
| ecosystem tries that approach first.
| lolinder wrote:
| I took it as referring to the world in general, not Rust
| specifically. It happens every day in the news that someone
| loudly resigns to make their point. It's much less common
| that you see an article about how so-and-so spent five
| years of their life working hard to change a culture from
| the inside and finally is seeing results.
| Klonoar wrote:
| You can certainly try to view it that way, but I would
| submit that, at best, you're being overly charitable
| regarding interpretation when the very thread we're on is
| centered on discussing issues within the Rust ecosystem
| itself.
| lolinder wrote:
| Oh, they're certainly meaning it to _also_ refer to the
| situation at hand. I took it as "I wish we had more role
| models that would stay in and stand up, because the
| people loudly resigning in this case are copying others
| they've seen loudly resign."
| twelfthnight wrote:
| lolinder is exactly right on what I meant to say
| (including what they said in the sibling post to this
| comment). But I hear your point, too, Klonoar. It's
| definitely worth pointing out that people can have good
| reasons for "going public" after realizing they couldn't
| fix things from the inside.
| raverbashing wrote:
| I feel that some people exceed in technical prowess while
| lacking in emotional maturity and intelligence
| bakugo wrote:
| [flagged]
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Probably, basically every prominent rust dev has an anime
| profile picture.
| xbar wrote:
| I have different feelings.
| xoac wrote:
| Any reccomendations for Anime discord channels?
| conradludgate wrote:
| The Rust community server is pretty fun
| dmonitor wrote:
| Yes. Join none of them.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Oh come now, surely there must be one good... well, one
| decent... one not entirely terrible one out there, right?
| psychphysic wrote:
| These are the HN interactions I love.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| [flagged]
| busterarm wrote:
| PCU warned us about this in the early 90s...
| EA-3167 wrote:
| As someone who loudly and frequently proclaimed that it was
| just kids being kids, I have serious regrets about that these
| days. I couldn't have been more wrong.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Corporations being childish? Why I never.
| boxed wrote:
| Seems similar to how The Unredacted was cancelled at Sundance,
| a much more high profile and internationally relevant affair.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| There's a little bit of a "getting out at the right time so I
| can say I was there when it was good" vibe to it. As a total
| Rust outsider I can understand. Last time I tried to learn it,
| it seemed to prefer trading one set of problems ubiquitous to
| computing for a worse set unique to its niche. I don't know if
| people really like it or just want to be seen liking it, but
| I'd rather keep turning the wheel that makes Java code and have
| time for my other interests.
| amelius wrote:
| The corporations are just waiting for the meat to be thrown
| their way.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| > This is the kind of internecine conflict I should see in
| Anime discord servers, not about a language whose governance
| involves multiple major corporations!
|
| I love this.
|
| On one hand this is an indicator for our expectations. Adult
| stuff should be handled by adults, with wisdom and maturity.
|
| On the other hand it is a sample of reality as it is (distinct
| from the shoulds we project) - no, corporations and adult
| organizations are not led/ruled by mature people, and not
| everyone acts wisely all of the time. This is the reality.
|
| I like to believe that acknowledging that and creating
| organizations to be resilient in the context of immaturity,
| pettiness, confusion... humanity(!) is the way.
|
| We do have some examples of nature leadership but these are the
| exceptions to the rule. People are people, let's figure in
| their humanity.
|
| So what I'm interested in are org structures supporting and
| correcting for fairness, wisdom, maturity.
| tra3 wrote:
| Are you suggesting there's a difference in how conflict is
| handled in major corps vs anime discords? I think you're doing
| a disservice to anime discords everywhere...
| meindnoch wrote:
| >This is the kind of internecine conflict I should see in Anime
| discord servers
|
| Anime/furry culture has a significant overlap with the Rust
| community as far as I can tell as an outsider. E.g. there was
| that guy developing a Linux GPU driver for M1 Macs, narrating
| it with an anime "waifu" avatar and a speech plugin that makes
| you sound like a little girl from a Japanese cartoon.
| warent wrote:
| Considering two of the first commenters in this gist are
| Kirby and a Dall-E anime girl, sounds like a spot on
| assessment.
|
| Not that people should be shamed for their personal
| interests! Everyone should imbue _some_ of their personal
| style in their work, that 's how we generate creativity and
| so forth.
|
| That being said, I think the problem is when personal style
| overlaps _too much_ in what needs more professional
| separation and distancing. It seems like that can be a recipe
| for too much ego that creates rifts.
|
| There is a risk that we start turning a serious endeavor into
| a personal project / hobby, or worse just treating it as a
| joke; leading to situations like: Up until
| recently, I was part of two private online discussion spaces
| where a bunch of Rust people hung out.
| meindnoch wrote:
| It can also be pretty off-putting for women to be honest.
| When someone's avatar is an AI-generated "waifu" picture
| with deep cleavage, I don't think it looks welcoming for
| the average female programmer...
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| It's not welcoming to this male programmer either.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26753812/
|
| I guess if your passion is reverse engineering M1 macs and
| porting Linux to it, for free, there is a decent chance you
| are highly introverted and perhaps even a savant.
|
| If you ask an average software engineer, or even a talented
| one to do it, most of them won't be able to crack the
| problem.
| Klonoar wrote:
| This... isn't just a Rust thing, it's very common in Linux
| circles as well. Where do you think the UnixPorn aesthetic of
| a certain type of background comes from? ;P
|
| Note I'm not weighing in on the culture itself, because I
| don't care - I'm just noting it because it's kind of
| ridiculous to try and use it to dogpile onto the Rust
| ecosystem and what it's going through.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The Rust community I'm familiar with is basically like any
| other group of programming enthusiasts who want to talk about
| and work with a language.
|
| Whatever is going on in Twitter land and with the drama
| around conferences and boards is a different world, but they
| aren't necessarily one and the same.
| mr_00ff00 wrote:
| I was gonna say, I experience this a lot. Most rust users I
| meet and see on HN are nice and welcoming.
|
| But on twitter, it's all tribalism and attacking other
| languages and other people. Gives a distorted figure of
| what the community really is.
| beezlewax wrote:
| I'm glad you stated this.
| switch007 wrote:
| Oh that's what was going on. I was curious but never enough
| to dig. That's... interesting. Each to their own I guess
| robin_reala wrote:
| s/guy/woman
| meindnoch wrote:
| Huh? A cursory google search says it's a guy called Hector
| Marcan. Is this wrong?
| runjake wrote:
| As far as I know, this person, who goes by "Asahi Lina"
| is not Hector Marcan.
| mustache_kimono wrote:
| I think the widespread belief is Asahi Lina is an avatar
| for Hector.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| I suspect the person you are replying to is thinking of
| Alyssa Rosenzwig[0] who appears from the outside to be a
| major contributor to the work, and who's blog posts on
| the project were followed by the HN crowd.
|
| [0]: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-7.html
| kzrdude wrote:
| It's Asahi Lina that's implied in this case, even if
| Alyssa also has worked on GPU
| conradludgate wrote:
| Asahi Lina is the vtuber, not Hector
| meindnoch wrote:
| Huh? I'm not sure I follow you.
|
| As far as I can tell, this "Asahi Lina" is a cartoon
| figure, that's used for lip-syncing with a voice effect.
| Are you saying the real person behind the cartoon is also
| called "Asahi Lina"?
| conradludgate wrote:
| Asahi Lina is who they identify as. It is likely a
| pseudonym but I see no source for any other name. So I
| have no reason to believe it's Hector. I would rather not
| make assumptions about someone beyond what they present
| themselves as, so as far as I'm concerned, they are Asahi
| Lina She/Her
| meindnoch wrote:
| Ok, but we can still make an educated guess on who's
| behind the fictional cartoon character...
| sangnoir wrote:
| To what end?
| meindnoch wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the question... Because
| normally you'd want to discuss the work/actions of a
| human person, not an animated picture? :D
| johnny22 wrote:
| people have gone by pseudonyms for ages in the culture
| around hackers and computers generally. I don't see why
| we shouldn't do the same here.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| I thought they were one and the same.
| dboat wrote:
| Not sure if you are speaking out of knowledge of this
| particular individual but with respect to other cultures, a
| biological male presenting as female does not necessarily
| mean trans the way western cultures think of it.
|
| Japanese Okama culture, for instance, is an entirely
| different animal. I don't know this specific person just
| thought I'd share that misgendering isn't as black and
| white as even a lot of trans people think it is.
| robin_reala wrote:
| "she/her" on @lina@vt.social
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Asahi Lina is widely believed to be a persona of Hector
| Martin (aka marcan)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35251905 and
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238601 .
| 2h wrote:
| uhh:
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=LonzMviFCNs
| FrankWilhoit wrote:
| Thresholds of complexity are much, much lower than is usually
| believed.
|
| 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.
| hurril wrote:
| If someone resigns over this, then I would say that the right
| people are resigning. Very sad to see competence go but rage quit
| over this? Come on.
|
| Come back tomorrow. Nothing has happened. Please!
| shri_krishna wrote:
| > Part of me is very disappointed at ThePrimeagen, the Twitch
| streamer / YouTuber with whom I used to be friendly, for milking
| those controversies for every view and sub possible. For riling
| up the masses, adding fuel to the fire, creating the exact
| opposite of the climate we need to solve these issues.
|
| 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.
| fb03 wrote:
| Pretty shitty move to single out ThePrimeagen. He has done more
| for the Rust community in raising awareness of bullshit and
| also educating people on the technical intricacies of Rust
| (much akin the Jon Gjengset videos) than a lot of these 'in'
| folks.
| xoac wrote:
| True only for people who "learn" by watching twitch. There
| are tons of articles on the intricacies of rust by people
| involved with rust development only they used words and are
| not so entertaining.
| hotfixguru wrote:
| I wonder what he tries to achieve by calling him out. Seems
| like the only outcome is drama, and for what?
| fb03 wrote:
| Yes, he called people out on 'generating drama' yet this is
| a drama generating move itself.
| dashtiarian wrote:
| And he's being called out for a 3 minutes comment.
|
| I've seen Taliban media with slightly more integrity than rust
| leadership.
| mort96 wrote:
| Yeah, sometimes the fire is burning something which _should_ be
| burnt, and "adding fuel to the fire" is the right thing to do.
| People are "adding fuel to the fire" regarding political
| decisions all the time, to get the masses engaged and make them
| pick a side.
|
| And in the absence of a democratic process for decision-making,
| the only recourse we have, as people who depend on the projects
| governed by these groups, is to shout loudly enough to be
| noticed. If "throwing fuel at the fire" is what's needed to get
| enough people to engage to stop a really bad policy from going
| through, it's the right thing to do.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Yes, calling out someone for reporting on drama, as though the
| drama isn't a problem, it's _your fault_ for gawking at it, is
| a strange choice. I think it 's not unrelated to the ego-
| centric nature of these Rust drama events.
| mustache_kimono wrote:
| > Part of me is very disappointed at ThePrimeagen.. For riling up
| the masses, adding fuel to the fire, creating the exact opposite
| of the climate we need to solve these issues.
|
| 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.
| serial_dev wrote:
| these things keep happening and it shows a deeper problem with
| rust leadership and unaccountability.
|
| 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.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| > Just like with the trademark policy fiasco just a month ago
|
| I think those are different. Rust trademark policy is more a
| case of miscommunication, while this seems more deliberate.
|
| Rust Foundation iirc made a draft statement but rather than
| saying "We'll take community feedback into consideration" went
| with a much more vague "We'll might take this into
| consideration". At least that's my impressions.
|
| It was fairly bad trademark policy forbidding crates from using
| rust and cargo. `cargo x` 99% of the time was some cargo
| plugin.
| FranksTV wrote:
| Anyone who's written long contracts know you start with some
| boilerplate that contains a bunch of stuff and gradually
| whittle it down till it's just what you need.
|
| The error they made was assuming people would understand that
| process.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Why does Rust drama pop up every once in awhile? Why are adults
| publishing soap opera drama on github? This is all for
| maintaining a programming language?
| deadletters wrote:
| "even though it is VERY tempting to try and get involved with
| governance matters"
|
| That voice in your head is you wanting to do the right thing.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| I think this Rust drama is way over-exaggerated. One community
| member made one decision for one conference which they probably
| thought wouldn't be a big deal (I understand now that it is, but
| to an outsider "keynote downgraded to regular presentation" don't
| seem like much). And now multiple people are leaving the Rust
| team, and some random commentators are "disgraced" by the Rust
| Project, and "threatening" to stop using Rust?
|
| 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.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I have no knowledge beyond what's been on Hacker News today,
| but usually these blowups are over longstanding tensions, even
| though it looks like an overreaction on the surface.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > One community member made one decision for one conference
| which they probably thought wouldn't be a big deal (I
| understand now that it is, but to an outsider "keynote
| downgraded to regular presentation" don't seem like much).
|
| One person should not have been able to reverse the decision
| that was made by a collective leadership vote. The fact that
| was allowed to happen is a failure of governance.
|
| One of the people who left was the one who initially nominated
| ThePHD for the keynote. To have your nomination approved by a
| vote and then unilaterally overturned by someone working
| through backchannels would make me angry, too. If I was
| volunteering a bunch of time to a project that did that to me I
| might consider stepping down over it.
| gishbunker wrote:
| It's a bug. Bugs happen. Systems are still systems whether
| they deal with people or code.
|
| When big bugs happen, we evaluate why, and improve the system
| so it performs better next time. We don't blame people, we
| focus on what allowed people to make bad decisions. In this
| case, it sounds like a bad decision making process that needs
| a patch.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Sure, but if you don't have authority to make the patch,
| and especially if this sort of thing has happened
| repeatedly--as the linked post suggests--sometimes it's
| easier and better for your sanity to just leave the system.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| Thank goodness you're here to tell us what literally no one
| thought about.
| FranksTV wrote:
| Part of the problem here is too much collective decision-
| making.
|
| Sometimes it's much better to just assign someone
| responsibility for something. Then if they screw up, they can
| learn from it, or you give the job to someone else.
|
| I think a lot of the issue here is due to the fact that there
| was seemingly a one week period between the decision being
| made and it actually being communicated.
|
| And then, because no one has been given authority to make
| decisions and actually be a leader, then everything they say
| has to be in this weird passive voice like "It's been decided
| that.." which makes it sound like a conspiracy when it's
| really just a fear of delegation.
|
| The ruling committee should nominate someone to do things,
| and then let them do it. They should never try to actually
| run things themselves, it's always a disaster.
| mort96 wrote:
| > Part of me is very disappointed in the enormous waste of time
| that is the "crablang" fork, and wishes the people involved could
| have engaged in a constructive manner instead.
|
| 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.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I am surprised how people pretend to be outraged over a fork of
| an open source language.
|
| They are outraged by the fork because having a fork reach
| thousand stars so quickly made it harder to ignore the reality
| that people who love the language were fed up with the
| leadership.
|
| Forking is the essence of open source software. Don't like
| something somebody else is doing with a software? It's open
| source, so you do it your way.
|
| Also, please allow the crablang people to waste their time the
| way they want to. Some people watch Netflix, some people will
| create a fork and learn more about the project. They don't need
| anyone's permission or approval.
| conradludgate wrote:
| When does it change from time wasting to trolling? I've
| already seen people use it as a way to troll many rust devs
| sincs it was first created
| psychphysic wrote:
| I flicked through the GitHub and website.
|
| Is crablang a fork of Rust? Is Rust a plant fungus?
|
| Edit: yes and apparently yes.
|
| They take great lengths not to name rust which is interesting
| for a fork.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Forking is a huge resource sink, if it goes anywhere at all.
| It disrupts network effects that software benefits from. It
| is, if nothing else, leaving a local maximum of utility for
| everyone. In short, it's inconvenient, if not actually
| painful and heralds future inconvenience/pain. Anger may not
| be wise, depending on the specifics, but it should absolutely
| not be surprising.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| Forking might be seen as a form of protest against the
| current leadership or their failure to address the needs
| and concerns of the community.
|
| If the community does not agree with the leadership's
| actions (or failure to act) then a fork might be a possible
| road ahead.
|
| Compare:
|
| OpenOffice - LibreOffice
|
| Jenkins - Hudson
|
| MySQL - MariaDB
|
| and many others.
| 88joshgree wrote:
| given the github repo says;
|
| "now with 100% less bureaucracy!"
|
| not sure they are trying to create a "well-resourced,
| thoughtfully governed fork"?
| mort96 wrote:
| Maybe you're right, maybe a fork in and of itself could be
| productive but "crablang" specifically is a waste of time. I
| sort of interpreted the OP to be decrying the idea of a fork
| in general, but that might not have been the intention.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Time for a fork? "Rust without identity politics?" Require
| anonymity and disclaimers of any human presence (virtues or
| failings) in regards to the Project in order to become a
| contributor.
|
| Call it "Dust". Mascot could be a crab louse.
| kagevf wrote:
| They already have crablang:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35592005
| shadowbanevader wrote:
| https://github.com/crablang/crab
| cookieperson wrote:
| Fasterthanlime is something like my spirit animal. Prolific and
| educational blogs that have challenged my knowledge with whimsy
| joy and catharsis. Also apparently emotionally intelligent and
| making the right moves here.
|
| 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!
| FranksTV wrote:
| As it turns out, the qualities and skills that make someone an
| excellent systems programming language developer are completely
| orthogonal to the qualities and skills that make someone
| effective in governing a loose organization made up mostly of
| volunteers and subject to worldwide scrutiny.
| timClicks wrote:
| > Also apparently emotionally intelligent and making the right
| moves here.
|
| One thing I really appreciate about Amos is that he spent a
| long time reflecting on the kind of person that he would like
| to be. If you look at his content from over 5 years ago, when
| he created his own programming language seemingly out of spite,
| you can see how much he has grown. It's very impressive and I
| wish him every success.
| waboremo wrote:
| Ain't that the old problem, the ones who should be in those
| positions tend to run from them and those that shouldn't run
| towards those positions. I don't think it's a problem we're
| anywhere close to solving unfortunately. We just sort of assign
| someone who seems reluctant about it but won't run from the
| position, but in most cases we just let whoever asks first!
| cookieperson wrote:
| Might be interesting to make it completely democratic so less
| inside recruiting happens. Using ranked choice community wide
| voting with fill ins. Otherwise stuff might rot from the
| inside...
| paddw wrote:
| There is obviously a lot of criticism justly being leveled at the
| poor quality of governance on Rust thus far, but I think a fair
| point I haven't seen raised is, what other languages lacking a
| corporate sponsor as the primary driver of governance have done
| better? (and why)
|
| 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.
| npn wrote:
| Elixir is pretty popular, and has been adopted by multi big
| companies. Yet from my experience it does not have any drama
| whatsoever.
| [deleted]
| skilled wrote:
| As a complete outsider to Rust, all I can say is that the Rust
| community should use this recent "drama" as a stepping stone to
| figure out the leadership problems and move on with a much
| stronger determination in the future.
|
| 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.
| quantum_state wrote:
| This does not help with evolving Rust forward with a robust
| ecosystem ... something should be done ...
| reneberlin wrote:
| [flagged]
| adamrezich wrote:
| > The recent incident with ThePHD's keynote downgrade was not
| racially motivated, thankfully, but... if that's what it looks
| like from the outside, and any form of official communication is
| still days or weeks away, does it really make a difference?
|
| 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.
| _-____-_ wrote:
| As an outsider, when I see drama in the Rust community, I
| always assume it has something to do with 2SLGBTQIA+
| discrimination or racism. In this case, I was surprised when I
| skimmed the blog post to see none of that, although maybe I was
| missing some subtle subtext embedded in the pronoun usage or
| words like "discomfort." I can't follow this stuff anymore.
| ra1231963 wrote:
| I'm with you, but have you not been around the last few years?
| American society is absolutely obsessed with white supremacy.
| This is true in the media, the highest levels of government,
| and in big tech.
|
| I personally listened to paid guest lecturers tell me all white
| people are racist, and those who deny it are proving their
| racism. In my workplace.
|
| People are brainwashed to believe and see this stuff at this
| point, and there is an industry monetizing it.
|
| If the only tool you have is a hammer...
| adamrezich wrote:
| sure, and this is precisely why I left Redmond after 2016 and
| gave up on my lifelong dream of becoming a professional game
| developer--this poisonous culture was just too much for me to
| grapple with irl. at one convention, I directly experienced a
| white person apologizing to a black person for "being white".
| at the same convention, I went to a panel, given by a woman,
| with a black woman who I was seeing at the time, and when I
| asked her after the panel what she thought of it, her only
| thought was, "it was mostly white dudes in there." I packed
| my bags and moved away shortly thereafter--it was quite clear
| that staying immersed in this insanity any longer would have
| significant negative effects on my mental health.
|
| the idea that any contemporary professional organization--but
| _especially_ an overtly progressive-minded organization like
| the Rust Foundation--could even have the _possibility_ of
| hiding secret undercover racist bigots deep within its
| leadership such as to make the above highlighted statement a
| _necessary disclaimer_ (as opposed to a superfluous virtue-
| signal) is so far beyond insane that I don 't even know where
| to begin.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| _" And most of the time, it turned out that the intentions were,
| in fact, good! But the execution was poor -- or that there was a
| lack of resources, a lack of process, or a lack of manpower, or a
| deadline to hold, or it was just that person being that person
| again._
|
| ...
|
| _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.
| adelarsq wrote:
| Would be really good a change no the communication side. But I am
| without expectations side there where days without any
| explanation about why a draft for trademark pourposes was so bad.
|
| Now working with Rust I have the same feelings as working with
| Java...
| FranksTV wrote:
| I can explain it for you: when you start writing a long
| complicated legal agreement, you never start from scratch. You
| almost always ask your lawyer to prepare the first draft and
| they take another agreement that's similar to the one you want
| and find-replace the names and modify a few parts of it. The
| early draft is never anything close to what you want and the
| hard work is hammering it into shape.
|
| The document that they circulated was clearly a bunch of
| boilerplate. They assumed (wrongly) that the wider audience
| would have the same understanding and view of it that they did:
| that it was an early draft, subject to change. But the internet
| is not capable of such nuance.
| mkl95 wrote:
| I sense too much bureaucracy and micromanagement. I would
| typically expect that from 25+ year old languages. A technology
| as young as Rust shouldn't be riddled with drama.
| all2well wrote:
| Possibly controversial take, but I don't think it's helpful to
| gossip about who the bad apples are. Either take a risk and name
| names, or wait until the dust settles.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Sociologists in the future need to study the Rust project to
| understand what went wrong. I'm sure there are many lessons
| there.
| Keyframe wrote:
| It all started with programming socks.
| alex_lav wrote:
| OSS is funny to me in some capacities. A marketed positive of OSS
| is "You can fork it and make your own changes!", and yet, when
| someone actually does this with a prolific project (Rust and
| Node.js are the big two that come to mind), they're met with "How
| dare they! This is exploitive and unproductive!"
|
| 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.
| nmarkn wrote:
| I'm slightly on the side of JeanHeyd Meneide, on the other hand
| he strongly participated in cancelling Stallman:
|
| https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235124.html
|
| The Rust situation seems to be instance the woke purging each
| other, Soviet style.
| dralley wrote:
| RMS has explicitly tried to claim the ability to veto group
| decisions within GNU affiliated projects in the past even
| though he never had that power implicitly nor explicitly in the
| past.
|
| His cancellation has as much to do with pissing off so many of
| the people around him as anything else.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| What am I missing? The rust board, or whatever entity, booked a
| keynote and then unceremoniously canceled it, right? Poor
| diplomacy, but why is there so much chiming on and so many
| allusions of various -isms?
| gwd wrote:
| From the handful of things posted here to HN about the
| "developing issue", it looks like:
|
| * Someone was invited to give a keynote; this was voted on at
| some point
|
| * After the invitation was made and everything was done, some
| concerns were raised about the content of the talk --
| apparently about whether the keynote slot would be seen as an
| endorsement of the technical contents by the Rust leadership.
|
| * Someone in Rust leadership unilaterally asked for the talk to
| be downgraded from a keynote to a "normal talk", without
| telling anyone else or calling for another vote
|
| * The invited speaker, recognizing something political going
| on, decided to "not play the game" and decided not to speak at
| all.
|
| * One of the people who voted to invite said speaker to give a
| keynote, but never heard about the request to "downgrade",
| decided to resign.
|
| As someone who is also involved in an open-source project with
| procedures and bylaws and such -- it seems like part of the
| issue has been certain people in the Rust leadership not being
| conscientious about following the process. I do believe that
| back-channel communication and coordination is necessary in
| real life. However, I also believe that confidence in the
| process itself is important. Having determined that something
| was necessary to be done, the person in question should have
| raised an official vote (perhaps talking to people individually
| beforehand); and having broken official procedures, that person
| should at very least apologize publicly for doing so, and
| perhaps be removed from a leadership role (at least for some
| period of time, maybe a year).
|
| The author of this piece says people were "trying to do the
| right thing"; I mean, sure, we're all trying to do the right
| thing -- but when you screw up, you need to own it.
| cookieperson wrote:
| Go to HN page 2 and grep for Rust. More drama with the rust
| governance or something. They gave someone a professional
| honorific and took it back for unstated and less then
| satisfying reasons. The person it happened too seems to be a
| good enough person and some nice people left the rust org over
| it.
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| This is why I refuse to take Rust, Go, or Swift seriously. There
| are so many other languages out there that aren't insanely
| political with so many people's hands in it. There is no way good
| decisions can be made in an environment like that. Of course, the
| main advantage of joining the Rust cult is that the job market
| for "Rust programmers" is pretty well-defined, so labeling
| yourself as a "Rust programmer" will allow you to tap into those
| markets. But I'd argue those markets are pretty bad.
| Kye wrote:
| I've only seen the wars over when and if to adopt new C and C++
| standards in the distant periphery, but it seems like any
| attempt to encode human interests and needs into systems
| through code brings about strife. The politics there might be
| less visible since it happens on mailing lists and old forums
| no one's ever heard of, but the only difference is visibility.
|
| New languages will inevitably adopt the means of communication
| they grew up in. That's blogs and gists and tweets.
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| Yes of course C++ isn't any better. C is a weird one since
| it's the "original language", the base layer of abstraction
| so-to-speak so C89 is going to be the standard forever. The
| standards committee around that one has zero power (as far as
| I can tell).
|
| What I'm comparing Rust/Swift/Go to are languages like
| MoonScript/Objective-C/Lua, where there is a single BDFL
| (Leafo/Steve Jobs/Roberto). I feel like for programming
| languages there should only be 1 or 2 developers, that way
| there is no conflict of interest or "creative differences"
| makapuf wrote:
| Thats funny, because that same person we are talking about
| battled the C standard committee (with bureaucracy, not
| specific people) into accepting #embed :
| https://thephd.dev/finally-embed-in-c23
| jstx1 wrote:
| Wait what have Go and Swift done?
| stefanos82 wrote:
| For Go I presume the telemetry situation?
| hu3 wrote:
| Didn't they change Go telemetry to be opt-in before the
| functionality was even released? So they heard their users.
| I would say that's a good thing.
|
| edit: Yep, they announced their intentions and after
| consulting the community, they changed it to be opt-in
| instead. https://github.com/golang/go/issues/58894
| unethical_ban wrote:
| If you wanted to use any of these languages, you can do so
| without ever knowing that these kinds of behind-the-scenes
| drama is taking place.
|
| I haven't heard anyone suggest that actual development of the
| named languages has suffered due to drama.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| come to elixir. Everyone is focused on making the language and
| ecosystem awesome with no drama.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| Do not come to Elixir. We care about people and intentions,
| those that don't aren't welcome.
| shri_krishna wrote:
| I love Go. I don't see any controversies surrounding Go. Or did
| I miss something?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Whole thing around generics where Pike and the community
| would attack the competence of anyone suggesting that go was
| lacking for not having them.
|
| That left a bad bad taste in my mouth.
| rch wrote:
| As an outsider with a professional interest in the language, it's
| hard (well, tiresome) to sift through the various committees and
| boards to identify the people who actually design and implement
| the language.
|
| Is there a concise roadmap that's easy to share?
| cookieperson wrote:
| If there's one thing I've learned from most of this it's that
| paying attention to the people in charge is probably not worth
| the effort. They come and go, lots of drama, and insiders are
| reporting the ones who are there probably shouldn't be.
| late2part wrote:
| In a false quarrel there is no true valour. (Benedick, Act 5
| Scene 1) _Much Ado About Nothing_
| zibarn wrote:
| Can someone do an eli5 please? I've read the statements of the
| people involved but hardly contextualized, how this is involving
| rust if so?
| rvz wrote:
| This is the reason why we cannot take the Rust community
| seriously with these tantrums. We have given them enough time to
| get a grip on this nonsense and instead they are embarrassing
| themselves with pantomimes like this.
|
| 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.
| dralley wrote:
| It is not as if the C++ standards committee, or Google (go) or
| Oracle (Java) are free from drama. It just tends to leak into
| public view less frequently.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I think that's the point. Drama in the C++ community is
| handled more professionally, in the Rust community it turns
| into temper tantrums.
| dralley wrote:
| >I think that's the point. Drama in the C++ community is
| handled more professionally,
|
| I'm very skeptical of this based on what I hear of
| committee meetings. And committee members occasionally
| snipe at each other in public on /r/cpp.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| C++ and Java are huge. Drama or no drama simply stops to
| matter at that size. These languages are here to stay.
|
| Golang is also becoming rather big, although doesn't make a
| big deal out of it imho, as the community is barely ever
| evangelizing about it. And so far, the only actual drama I am
| aware of, was the telemetry stuff, and that resolved itself
| nicely.
| dralley wrote:
| > C++ and Java are huge. Drama or no drama simply stops to
| matter at that size. These languages are here to stay.
|
| That makes zero sense. Drama does not simply stop because a
| language gets big enough. Some of Java's drama made it all
| the way to the Supreme Court.
| vilunov wrote:
| Then some ideas of the post went over your head. Whenever there
| are people there will be drama, and you wrong when you lump
| together ordinary contributors and drama queen. A community is
| not a hivemind.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Yeah, this whole drama feels so unnecessary and stupid. If you
| feel a burning need to create a huge drama clusterfuck, have it
| about some controversial change to the language, not about a
| single talk at a conference. This is just a fucking waste of
| time.
|
| As a casual Rust user, the message that I get from this is that
| I should not spend time with the Rust community.
| kristoff_it wrote:
| > Part of me is very disappointed at ThePrimeagen, the Twitch
| streamer / YouTuber with whom I used to be friendly, for milking
| those controversies for every view and sub possible. For riling
| up the masses, adding fuel to the fire, creating the exact
| opposite of the climate we need to solve these issues.
|
| 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'.
| jumpyjumps wrote:
| The cynic in me thinks that shot from fasterthanlime is more to
| do with ThePrimeagen being the new React Andy in the same
| content creation space as him, scooping up views/subscriptions.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Uh, at this point, just name them? What is this, Hollywood? Where
| everyone knows what's happening but doesn't say anything until a
| big scandal occurs and everyone piles on?
| bluejekyll wrote:
| "I was able to reassure myself, by checking these private
| discussion places, that there were good people, fighting for
| the right thing to be done. That things weren't irremediably
| broken. That there was hope for improvement in the near
| future."
|
| From the linked article, that probably makes it clear that they
| believe Rust Leadership screwed up, and probably represents why
| naming individuals might not be helpful, and could hurt the
| project even more than this episode already has.
|
| The real question is what is the fix, and they need to
| implement it soon.
| lucasyvas wrote:
| Naming individuals is the best solution because it will
| create the appropriate infighting to resolve the issue. It
| will be a huge mess, but it will come to resolution sooner.
| lolinder wrote:
| The people who are "in" enough to participate in
| "infighting" likely already know who's being referred to.
| Naming and shaming would just bring fire down on them from
| the wider internet, which depending on the personalities of
| those involved may have the _opposite_ of the desired
| effect.
| FranksTV wrote:
| I think you're underestimating the arbitrary cruelty of the
| internet. Naming people just paints a target on them.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| Particularly with tech people who are well known to blow
| up and dox individuals and do even worse things based on
| a rumor, let alone someone who really knows confirming
| it. There are a lot of bad actors in tech who love doing
| that stuff when they get someone with a target placed on
| them.
| gozzoo wrote:
| I gess the point is not to blame whoever did this, but to
| change the system, so that no single person can have the
| authority to do something like this again.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Did they technically have the authority to do what they did
| this time?
| capableweb wrote:
| Well, saying things like "I can tell you that all the good
| people who could've left haven't yet, and that all the people
| who should've resigned, haven't yet." does feel like there
| are fingers being pointed, but of course it's not clear who
| they are being pointed at. But I guess the people involved at
| least know who they are referring to, so at least that's
| good.
| swsieber wrote:
| But let it be noted that "should've" != "bad/malicious" (at
| least, that would be my reading). Rather I think it's more
| about bad fit and incompetence in a specific
| responsibility.
| xh-dude wrote:
| Names would be named if that were really the problem. I don't
| think it is. The common thread between this and the Foundation
| trademark drama is that the Project sucks at coordinating and
| communicating - they have been bigfooters late in the process
| and not servants earlier on.
| Klonoar wrote:
| I don't think enabling a witch hunt is the right play, but it
| is worth noting that the longer we go on with people who know
| what's going on behind the scenes not actually _saying
| anything_ but overall alluding to it just adds fuel to the
| overall speculation fire.
|
| Which is really all to say: fuck your concept of a weekend,
| the Rust ecosystem should've cut a response Friday night or
| Saturday.
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