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by bigyikes 1089 days ago
> Do you really consider people learning Rust on the job to be "Rust adopters" who are partisan?

Not necessarily, but it seems not unlikely.

> Is anyone who ever uses Rust a "Rust adopter" who is unable to give an unbiased opinion?

It’s still a relatively new and niche language, so, yes.

> Who would be able to give that opinion, in your view?

Nobody, and maybe that’s my real point, which is why I’d like some metrics to supplement the anecdotes. This especially applies to Rust, but I think also applies to any language.

Note that I don’t mean to imply that there isn’t value in anecdotes. There is.

2 comments

I agree the post could include more concrete metrics than self-assessment, but more than 1000 data points, even self-assessment data points, are usually not called anecdotes.
> Nobody, and maybe that’s my real point

To be honest, this is what I've taken away from this conversation so far: it doesn't seem like anything will satisfy your desires here.

> which is why I’d like some metrics to supplement the anecdotes

This conversation started with you not liking that the measure of quality is subjective, which is fine. How would you objectively measure code quality though? What metrics would you have preferred to see, other than the ones in this post?

I’m confused by your line of questioning. Why do you think I can’t be satisfied?

I don’t have a problem with this Google poll. I think it is valuable.

What would satisfy my desires is exactly what I stated in my original comment: something more objective, like defect rates of Rust code bases compared to non-Rust ones. Metrics like these have their owns problems, but would be a nice supplement to the opinion-based poll.

Neither the objective metrics, nor the opinion poll can provide a complete picture, and neither is a substitute for the other. Both would be awesome.

Because you said

> It’s still a relatively new and niche language, so, yes.

If nobody is able to give a non-partisan reply, I don't see how you could ever be satisfied.

> like defect rates of Rust code bases compared to non-Rust ones.

Cool, thanks. That does seem like one that is more objective, though there are confounding factors in that too, because sometimes defects lurk without being detected. This stuff is hard!

Google did put out something about this specifically on Rust (and others) use in Android, by the way, you might find that interesting: https://security.googleblog.com/2022/12/memory-safe-language...