sighs Can we leave meaningless emotions out of such discussions.
You clearly already have an opinion about "Rust activists" in particular.
What are the pros and cons of using Rust in a kernel, that's where it gets interesting.
There’s a significant degree of ideology and grassroots activism behind this, which deserves to be criticized.
The person which posted the Rust-positive quote is usually very supportive of Rust and chose the one quote which puts C++ in a bad light, yet conveniently forgot to include the numerous criticisms of Rust from BSD developers and the fact that one of the main devs prefers C++ for example.
It is when the discussion is about the merits of Rust over C++.
I will slam C++ all day long and praise Rust. But I'll also acknowledge that it's easier to do some things in C++ (and C) than in Rust.
It only truly works if C++ has a hard mode-switch between modern and legacy C++, which it doesn't have. Things like smart pointers reduce memory bugs, true, but Absolutely Nothing in modern C++ disallow you to mix in raw pointers too. At best you have conventions requiring people to utilize the modern features, but that is asking the humans writing the code to be disciplined, and you know very well we are not. Mistakes happen.
If modern C++ has a `legacy` block that works in a similar vein as Rust's `unsafe` then perhaps your position would have been much stronger. Alas, it'd be very weak still because modern C++ continues to carry the baggages of legacy C++.
This is a real problem because any zealot of this level serves only to discredit the product by association.
I have no opinion on Rust other than I don't have the time to learn it at the moment and it doesn't look like it solves any problems in the domain of things I care about at the moment. I have no opinion past that. I am interested in technical discussion on it in case it overlaps a problem domain I am interested in, which is why I am on this thread :)
Some people don't see the Cons, they don't want to see the Cons... be happy for them to be so enthusiastic about a topic they love and ignore the rest of what they say ;)
Every community has them. Every single one. Find me a group of a super niche hobby, say 20 people in total. I can bet my neck I'll still find at least one of them in there who is a zealot. Not sure why people focus on the 0.01% of the Rust users who are fanatics. No they are not on important positions at all, they are some frustrated people who scream on Reddit and sometimes on HN, that's it.
> This is a real problem because any zealot of this level serves only to discredit the product by association.
No it does not. How did you even do this logical leap? Let me give you an example of what you did just say:
At some point somebody somewhere used their laptop to physically assault someone and caused them a head trauma. So surely, laptops are now discredited and you should never use one, correct?
Now replace "laptop" with literally anything else you have ever used.
> I am interested in technical discussion on it in case it overlaps a problem domain I am interested in, which is why I am on this thread :)
99.9% of the discussions where Rust is involved are technical. You should consider how you are picking your discussion threads if that percentage is much lower for you. I have not stumbled upon a Rust zealot on HN in at least 6 months. Last one I saw on Reddit was 3-4 months ago (though admittedly I gave up on Reddit's technical forums because they seem full of very emotional people).
Out of all the tech communities I've observed or been a part of, I think Linux in general might be the worst for having zealots.
I don't think it's a generous so much as reasonable assumption given the size and impact of the Linux project, and that there were much more anti-ms people in the late 90s and 2000s.
> so what?
I gave my perspective in a context where it seemed relevant. Why so adversarial?
The relevance to the argument at hand, I think, I was just stating an anecdote to show a scale of sorts. I think talking about the level of zealotry is relevant and kind of interesting.
At the same time, it's very disheartening for me how so many people wouldn't use something just because there are zealots who can't shut up about it. :(
This has mostly worked well for me, and paradoxically only HN is the place where even trying to defend Rust on its actual technical (as in: objective) merits still gets you labeled as a "Rust loonie" or "a zealot" or "Rust evangelist strike force". Even Reddit, that I view as an absolute cesspool, and had accounts banned for asking a question clearly adhering to the template given in the subreddit, has more nuanced discussions on Rust.
I find that quite fascinating, and even though my HN account is fairly non-recent, I still don't associate with the apparently very bone-headed people who jump like hit by a power line when Rust is mentioned.