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Comment by JoshTriplett | Hacker News Reader

I'm one of the leads of the Rust language and community, and we absolutely welcome constructive criticism in many different forms. That's part of how we improve the language. I regularly upvote comments that point out things Rust needs to improve, as well as linking them from appropriate github issues or Zulip discussions.

The whole "RESF" thing is not in any way welcomed by Rust community and governance folks. It's not funny, it's harmful, and anyone posting it is doing a disservice to the language they purport to support.

To anyone reading this: please don't downvote constructive criticism of Rust. Save your downvotes for the comments that wish Rust wasn't as welcoming to everyone. ;)

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constructive criticism in many different forms

The thing about constructive criticism, when it comes to something like programming language design, is that its usefulness varies inversely with the importance of its aim.

Core features of the language are highly important (obviously) but criticizing them is not very useful since they're highly unlikely to change. Thus, only the most peripheral and superficial parts (as well as new additions) are subject to valid, constructive criticism.

People who have criticism for (or are otherwise skeptical of) the core parts of Rust are not being constructive, then, and so these fights can break out.

I've seen (and participated in) useful, productive discussions about core aspects of Rust; occasionally such things can even be improved. It takes a lot of care to have a productive discussion on such things, but it can absolutely happen.

Constructive doesn't mean actionable. Not sure where that assumption comes from. It may be that only future languages can reap the rewards of a discussion on core features that are unlikely to change in rust but that's still possibly valid constructive criticism.

What does RESF stand for? I know of "Rust Evangelism Task Force" and I am trying to match against "Rewrite Everything ..." or similar, but I am lost...

I had to Google to find out... Rust Evangelism Strike Force https://twitter.com/rustevangelism

Same thing, "Rust Evangelism Strike Force".

I'm fairly certain it's a meme.

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