[ferdowsi]

Rust evangelism is one of the cleaner examples of people absorbing a technology as an element of personal identity . You have all the hallmarks:

- rhetoric taking on levels of hostile zealotry like the linked post

- aggressive insertion of the topic in conversations where it is inappropriate

- inability or resistance to recognizing faults

For another modern example of technology as crusade, see "the blockchain".

It's just a programming language. It doesn't seem like a great sign that this is the type of language emerging as acceptable from a community.

[PoignardAzur]

> rhetoric taking on levels of hostile zealotry like the linked post

Honestly, this feels like bad faith.

The article explicitly says "this is a rant for catharsis, not a serious argument" and ends with a list of caveats and "okay actually it's more complicated" bits left out of the article.

Even if you take it seriously, you're implying that it's representative of the average Rust advocacy post, but this is easily the strongest piece of rhetoric I've seen in Rust advocacy.

You're implying that "levels of hostile zealotry" are commonplace, but every post I've seen advocating Rust on HN has been polite; for every post saying "this is a problem that Rust could solve" there's at least one answer saying "I like Rust but in this case maybe the costs of refactoring would be too high".

> inability or resistance to recognizing faults

Again, that hasn't been my experience at all.

[CousinMicks]

Honestly, the community is the most off-putting part of the language. The hype makes it difficult to find quality content; all I find are strange comparisons to dissimilar languages and "I rewrote 'Thing' in Rust" posts.

[rramadass]

You took the words right out of my mouth.

We are being asked to believe that the mere fact that "I rewrote 'Thing' in Rust" is somehow superior to everything else.

[peterth3]

> people absorbing a technology as an element of personal identity

This is true for all modestly popular technologies today. It’s fueled by social media culture. We are living in a world where people get wrapped up in their individual identity because it’s the only way to get any attention. This is a simply how social capital is distributed on the internet.

If you want your programming language, new tech, new video game, or new thing to be popular, then you need to create hype with influencers that wrap their identity up in your new thing and preach it’s endless benefits with cult-like fervor.

In fact, it’s impossible for a new language to survive unless they play this game. In other words, the hype we all hate isn’t rust’s fault, it’s our fault.