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by throwasehasdwi 3284 days ago
Are you implying that Rust should be the first programming language of these minority groups? Given the complexity of low level programming that doesn't sound like a good idea. If that is not your plan then this is a pointless exercise. The cohort of existing programmers is highly biased in these same ways. The bigger Rust gets the more difficult it will be to maintain anything far from the average. If rust becomes as popular as say Java or C++ it will be statistically impossible to maintain anything but the average within the community.
1 comments
steveklabnik 3284 days ago
> Are you implying that Rust should be the first programming language of these minority groups?

No.

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throwasehasdwi 3284 days ago
Did you read the rest? I appreciate a reply from the core team but you must understand your potential audience of Rust users is a highly gender/racial biased cohort. If Rust becomes popular it will become near impossible to deviate from the mean unless you engage in affirmative action by selectively removing community members in the majority.

Edit: I'm not against these kinds of initiatives at all, I just don't think it's realistic to apply such goals to a free-form group of programming language users.

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steveklabnik 3284 days ago
> Did you read the rest?

I did, but I disagree. You're making a large assumption, which is that the group will follow the demographic average. This is not true; individual programming languages' demographics differ from the overall population.

And there's certainly no desire to "remove" anyone, selectively or not. It's about growing the pie, not placing artificial limits.

Also, this initiative is not about people new to programming overall, it's about experienced people who may not know Rust or haven't found a way to get involved with Rust as a project.

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