Launching Rust Cloud Native
nickgerace.dev
nickgerace.dev
There isn't anything of substance here, as far as I can tell. While the whole thing "looks" official and has a very official name, there is nothing of substance there. Some of the text is incoherent, telling us that the author learned some Rust as a break from university (good for him!). Some parts of the text use "we" language, other parts "I" language. But nothing really explains what this is about or why anyone should care, what the actual deliverables of this nebulous "organization" will be, who its participants are (other than blog-author-dude), how much industry support it has, or why this will have any impact. But on the flipside, the mission statement is a clearly defined "We want to do what you want to do" (actual quote from the page), and there is a whole GitHub repo hosting the logo of the project, so clearly this is going places.
Why not. Sometimes it really just takes a name and a place for people who have common goals to work together.
EDIT: I have added a section explicitly stating the projects showcased are not officially affiliated unless given explicit consent from owners/maintainers.
I'll admit, I could have expressed the intent more clearly, but there's been gridlock here, so I created the organization with the intent of doing _something_.
It's even mentioned that the launch is largely symbolic, as the work is already open source, but that this is a sort of "call to arms".
Seems pretty easy to understand.
I think that's really fair feedback FWIW.
> would've been to write an RFC to some mailing list
I don't think this is a thing in Rust, but there is a user forum/ subreddit.
> I'm sure they'll learn as they go along, and I probably am being way to harsh on people who actually are trying to do something good for the community.
Yeah I think that's all I'm saying. Maybe this is the wrong venue, but I don't think your criticism was necessary or constructive in totality - some of it is, some of it isn't. I'm sure that much of this feedback will be incorporated, based on what I'm seeing from the author.
The reason why the GitHub organization was created BEFORE anything else was because of a tweet. I originally tweeted that I created the organization, and wanted to see if people were interested in using it (regardless of ownership). It unexpectedly blew up, and with encouragement from replies/DMs, I decided to add least plant a flag.
> WHO
This needs to be better clarified, I agree. This is a small section on this: https://github.com/rust-cloud-native/core#owners-and-members
> WHAT
This could be clearer as well. Perhaps, this section should indicate that we want to be a blank canvas or sandbox for issue/discussion filers to determine course: https://github.com/rust-cloud-native/core#what-are-the-goals...
Thought I would add some clarity here: many comments here are correct in that the announcement is largely symbolic. The substance is minimal because this is a "call to arms" more than anything. Since there's been some gridlock in creating a central place for Rust Cloud Native _anything_, I mainly just wanted to start _something_.
I can also see how the exchange of "I" and "we" was confusing. I talked to several folks about how to start this, so I did not want to claim sole ownership of ideas.
This was created entirely with volunteer time, and would ideally not have its course determined from a BDFL (me, in this case). If people want a Discord, a Zoom meetups, events hosted, etc., we will do that. I do not want to burn out by creating a bunch of low quality community locations prematurely.
These intentions could have be articulated more clearly, and I may edit the announcement post to do so. Thank you.
To do what, exactly? You point to a blurb from CNCF, but then don't say how Rust fits in to it at all. It's really not clear what the goals actually are, beyond coming across as buzzword bingo. I'm sure that's not your intent.
I believe the issue is that I've blended "why we exist" with "what we are doing". I'll fix that. Thank you for the feedback.
EDIT: I've filed an issue to track this: https://github.com/rust-cloud-native/core/issues/7
To be more constructive: I personally feel that such efforts have an easier way of getting of the ground if you first build consensus with a smaller group in private. Ideally this would include some of the influential people in this sphere, (devs of larger projects in the space, cloud providers, famous rustaceans, ...). Otherwise the initiative does not have a lot of credibility (because it hinges on the words of someone most people will not have heard of).
I find some of the wording weird in many places:
1) It gives the impression that this is an already established organization, when in fact it is merely a call to action.
2) You never actually say what you are trying to do. Even after all of this, I'm still not sure what you want to create. A community? A main code repository? A specific technical solution? You say you want to "enable the usage of Rust in the cloud". But that's super vague. I can use Rust in the cloud today already, so what are you _really_ after? And _how_ are you going to achieve that?
3) Putting the Code of Conduct front and center in your "approach" is just super weird.It's great that you have one, but it should ultimately just be a footnote. If someone asks you "how do you play hockey?", you don't answer: "well, there are strict rules about fouls, and if you commit one, you'll have to go on a time-out". Yes, there are some rules you'll need to follow, but that's not the main point of the game.
Thank you for being understanding, I appreciate it.
> To be more constructive: I personally feel that such efforts have an easier way of getting of the ground if you first build consensus with a smaller group in private. Ideally this would include some of the influential people in this sphere, (devs of larger projects in the space, cloud providers, famous rustaceans, ...). Otherwise the initiative does not have a lot of credibility (because it hinges on the words of someone most people will not have heard of).
In hindsight, having the folks I've spoken to in private be part of the "launch" and PR reviews could have prevented some confusion. That being said, I did not want to compose a large core group without giving the opportunity for new people to join. It was a trade-off to launch small with the intent to start public partnerships with well-known people in the future. I've spoken to some of these folks in the past, and we intend on collaborating/cooperating if the community's desires warrant it (e.g. a new channel in the official Discord).
> 1) It gives the impression that this is an already established organization, when in fact it is merely a call to action.
I would argue that it's an established organization, but we need to be clear that one of its first goals is to gather community feedback on determining where it should go next. I did not want ideation happen behind closed doors, It's established with the intent to be...
1. transformed 2. de-scoped to purely maintaining the website and itself
Regardless, this should be updated with your feedback in mind, and there's a new issue tracking it: https://github.com/rust-cloud-native/core/issues/8
> 2) You never actually say what you are trying to do. Even after all of this, I'm still not sure what you want to create. A community? A main code repository? A specific technical solution? You say you want to "enable the usage of Rust in the cloud". But that's super vague. I can use Rust in the cloud today already, so what are you _really_ after? And _how_ are you going to achieve that?
This is a good point. I've touched on this above, but it exists to facilitate community ideation and to maintain a website to connect people interested in cloud native Rust.
I believe the issue here is that I've mistakenly blended the mission with the goal(s). The mission tackles the "why", which is the enablement piece. That doesn't lean into the "real action". The goal(s) are what we are trying to do. Currently, that includes maintaining the existing repos, and gathering community feedback via issue/discussion filing. There's an issue tracking splitting the "mission" from the "goal(s)", and I think it'll make the answer to this much more clear: https://github.com/rust-cloud-native/core/issues/7
You made a new Github organization to ... do what? Are you launching a new CloudNative project in Rust? It's an umbrella group with a cute logo and it doesn't do or own anything? But there's a launch? My head is exploding.
We (me, at the moment) am making changes to the original post and the repositories themselves, to clarify intent here.
TLDR: there was a bit of a "the chicken and the egg" problem with cloud native Rust. My approach might not have resulted in the cleanest "launch", but with few volunteer hours and nothing similar in existence, I wanted to at least provide a sandbox or canvas for issue/discussion filers to help dictate where it goes next.
there's nothing here.
If you are looking for something that works, today: There is rust-musl-builder: https://hub.docker.com/r/ekidd/rust-musl-builder/
While I didn't make rust-musl-builder, I make and (though a bit busy lately) maintain rust-starter (https://github.com/rust-starter/rust-starter)
Look inside the docker directory, and in the Just file. You can generate an alpine linux docker image/container that has only your program and any dependencies statically linked.
This should, in theory, run your application in any cloud or linux server that has Docker support. Your image should also be very small (a few dozen megabytes at most).
I've tinkered with the language. It has some interesting ideas. More power to its fans. But sheesh, you folks get into "vegan" or "CrossFit" territory sometimes.
It's more like CRISPR for our industry. Or the invention of the seat belt. Safe and modern, when you typically had to choose just one. You wouldn't go calling those seat belt people crazy, would you?
It also comes at a time where the scripting, dynamic types, and bad package managers are coming under increased scrutiny. The culmination of so many headwinds meets a language that addresses all of the problems.
Rust should eat Python, Ruby, and Javascript too. It's not just coming for C++'s lunch.
But I would much rather that cults form around ideas like memory safety in low-level languages than things like Elon Musk or Apple...which is literally everywhere on HN. Almost any postitive headline about either makes the front page in like 10 seconds, and almost any negative headline gets flagged and dumped off the front page (and the same goes for comments in their respective threads). The teeny bopper-like obsession with Rust is relatively benign in comparison.
JOVIAL, NEWP, BLISS, PL/I, PL/S, PL.8, Mesa, Modula-2, Object Pascal, Concurrent Pascal, ....