[flohofwoe]

The C sphere is actually refreshingly free of zealotry (mainly I guess because there isn't such a thing as a "C community" and even despite C being the main attack target of language zealots - funny enough nobody complains about those pesky assembly coders and their hippie attitude towards memory safety lol).

The "religious zeal" was also an important reason why I switched back to C from C++ and why I don't have much interest in Rust. I can't quite stand the "holier than thou" attitude in.parts of those communities.

[pdimitar]

> This was an important reason why I switched back to C from C++ and why I don't have much interest in Rust. I can't quite stand the the "holier than thou" attitude in.parts of those communities.

This is 100% baffling to me. Let me explain.

1. Every single area has zealots. Yours included. And we're not talking only work. Every hobby area as well.

2. What the attitude of the most toxic 0.1% of the users of a thing is has exactly ZERO correlation with whether the thing is good and worth using.

3. By resisting only those 0.1% toxic zealots you are only demonstrating meaningless rebelliousness. As a supposed adult you should be immune to what are people hyping up and form your own opinion. INFORMED opinion. Not one based on the "many people praise it hence I, the intellectual, will stay far away from that obvious nonsense" stance.

4. Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, Rust is praised because it's actually good? Have you considered that the Rust community is not trying to cheat its way into your heart, and that the love Rust gets is justified by the people who need its features? Seems like you did not, and that's disappointing.

In other words, I have zero clue of your thought process here, maybe you can help me understand?

Back in my home town the VW Golf had an ardent fan base, yet one of my friends still bought one after he graduated. He didn't call the people who loved VW Golf zealots. He did his research and concluded that with his budget and mechanic skills the VW Golf is the ideal option.

Food for thought?

[flohofwoe]

I spent 20 years with C++ as my main language, and the endless and heated "style discussions" where personal.opinions are thrown around like facts were just tiring and a massive waste of time.

And it's such endless circular discussion where the extremists show up (I guess the equivalent in Rust is shaming projects that use unsafe, IIRC there have been quite a few dramas in the past). Shit like this is simply mentally exhausting, and in now 7 years of C as my main language I did not encounter this even once). In general C coders seems to be a quite relaxed, happy and tolerant bunch.

[pdimitar]

Restating your anecdotal evidence is just stubborn and does not advance any discussion but you do you.

You also addressed almost zero of what I said and asked you.

[flohofwoe]

In the end I did seriously look into Rust for a time and decided that's not my thing and instead watch progress from the sidelines in case anything interesting happens in the language to give it another try.

What's quite obvious when watching from the outside is that it's almost always people with a crab emoji in their profile who are more likely to talk shit about C programmers (myself included in a couple of cases via subtweeting).

I usually just shrug it off and move on, because what else is there to do?

[pdimitar]

> In the end I did seriously look into Rust for a time and decided that's not my thing and instead watch progress from the sidelines in case anything interesting happens in the language to give it another try.

FYI I did the same because the kind of work that I do does not desperately need Rust's benefits.

But I'll always call out biased and prejudiced people and I don't care about what the HN group-think believes.

> I usually just shrug it off and move on, because what else is there to do?

1. Stop thinking that the zealots are representative of... anything at all, really. (I don't include myself in that group of zealots. I get ticked off by bias and firmly held preconceived notions. That's why I commented as much in the entire sub-thread started by me.)

2. Do your own research like you did.

3. Refuse to think about trolls and zealots. Which is what all of us as healthy adults in this attention-predatory age of the internet should do.

[unkulunkulu]

As a supposed adult you should be ok with the fact that not everyone will like your favorite toy and way of life.

I don’t use rust because I don’t have enough time in my life right now for discovering a new language just for the pleasure of it and even if I had, my real alternatives would be functional languages, not rust vs C++ which I use daily in a big project that has incentives stacked into C++ favor

[throwanem]

If I responded in this fashion to someone who had already expressed concerns about a holier-than-thou attitude in parts of the community, I hope it would give me food for thought.

[pdimitar]

Just passing the ball? Yeah, I'd consider that + using a throwaway to be a set of circumstances that don't merit a response at all. ;)

I've already made my points several times. If you don't engage on the concrete arguments and are trying to be vaguely argumentative without substance then you're kind of polluting the replies.

Here's what should be a food for thought for you.

[throwanem]

Okay, and the direct version is that you responded to a general and rather vague comment about a holier-than-thou community by demonstrating in highly fluent detail exactly what that looks like in practice. To attempt a persuasive argument is by definition to engage in rhetoric. In the way you did so, specifically to persuade that the concern is unfounded, you behaved precisely as you sought to argue no one does. In short, you proved beyond doubt that your opponent's claim is valid. In rhetoric, there is no more abject form of failure.

Also, you behaved quite rudely as well as counterproductively - to the point that, if I felt any investment in the Rust community, I would now be asking you please to stop trying to represent it, at least until you can do so competently enough not to embarrass those you purport to defend.

If I found I'd erred as you have, it would bother me a lot. How you handle it is, happily for me, not my problem. But now at least you can't say you've never been told.

[pdimitar]

It's amazing how much writing you do just to demonstrate how thoroughly you misread my comments and only found what you wanted to find.

You're the perfect example of biased and tunnel-visioned. Textbook example even.

Think what you will. Unfortunately for you, future readers will make up their own mind and not all will land at your defective conclusion.

[samatman]

I agree 100% with the post you're replying to.

Signed, - future reader

[nottorp]

In Europe (esp Eastern), if you take resale price into account you have to get a german car because everything else loses value faster :)

The VWs you can just dump on the fans.

I know, I live in a similar country.

[pdimitar]

The point is that the guy who was bombarded by feedback that VW Golf is good did not go out of his way to avoid buying it. He did his own research, formed his own informed opinion, and didn't go against the grain due to misguided notions.

Wink wink.

[jstimpfle]

You are bombarded by feedback too, such that these endless discussions are just tiring and mentally exhausting, and improving a language by overfocusing on security is just a massive waste of time. (In some areas, it could make the difference between economic viability or not, or between possibility of explorative prototyping and mental exhaustion from friction during development).

I am assuming that you did your own research, formed your own informed opinion, and ignored the feedback nevertheless because you know who is right :-)

[pdimitar]

As a diligent programmer I research my tools and make my own conclusions when they are good and when they are inappropriate for the task at hand. Like everybody else should.

I don't even use Rust for a while now, by the way, because its lower speed of iteration was an ill fit for my contracting work. I love what it's doing but it is not a silver bullet (but then again, what is?).

...and by the way, mental exhaustion is pretty much a given if you are a pro. That's one of the reasons we are paid gobs of money.

As for the "feedback" you are alluding to, it's more like people throwing feces at me but feel free to disagree. None of them have addressed my questions except maybe one. They all rushed into snark just like you did. Even 1000 such comments are not interesting or informed feedback and can't advance any discussion.

I am still here and still open to discuss... with the people who bother to discuss.

[pjmlp]

Are you sure? The C sphere overlaps with the UNIX one, for obvious reasons.

[flohofwoe]

I can't remember Linux zealots raving irrationally about C though (although when googling I'm sure something will come up). Topics like Wayland or systemd on the other hand, oh my...

[pdimitar]

They are alive and well in this sub-thread of mine, quite a lot of them even. :) Down-voting and never engaging because who wants their bias challenged?

[pjmlp]

I said UNIX culture, not Linux.

Diving into the ruins of Usenet, or UNIX/C literature, will provide enough examples.