Jonathan is eminently reasonable. He just wants everyone to get along. He’s no more an evangelist for Rust than Linus is, who, you'll recall, is trying to make it work also.
LWN never once mentioned any blogs or opinions from kernel developers or otherwise unless they were in support of Rust. There has also never been an article highlighting the very real challenges not only with Rust but also the attempt to integrate it into the Linux kernel project. Scroll the home page for recent articles and it's pretty evident where the bias exists.
Meanwhile, The Register[3] cited at least Drew DeVault among others:
> LWN never once mentioned any blogs or opinions from kernel developers or otherwise unless they were in support of Rust.
Others please visit the links and see for yourself.
It's bare coverage. A few sentences when something notable happens. What do they say? Re: 1, it's a few nice sentences about Wedson after he leaves. Re: 2, it's one sentence and quote from a kernel dev.
Moreover, are we seriously trying to work the refs, as if LWN is NBC or Fox News, in this dispute? If you know of something interesting said be anti-Rust persons within the Linux kernel community, just share it with us. No reason it needs to be intermediated by LWN.
> Meanwhile, The Register[3] cited at least Drew DeVault among others:
AFAIK Drew Devault isn't a Linux kernel developer?
And re: 3, this blog post is like Drew's other blog posts. It is, excuse me, unthoughtful and incurious. Like all of Drew's writing, it is an Epistemic Closure Express to "Another Drew hobby horse". This time it was "Drew doesn't like Rust again." Is it any wonder someone else didn't want to include his bad writing for what?... Balance?
I think it's perfectly reasonable to have doubts about Rust in the Linux kernel. I'm sure there are many well qualified devs with interesting, learned views on the subject. Drew is not a such a person.
I have written reams about how Drew makes poor arguments. If you're curious, or don't think my case is well made here, you can my other comments re: Drew:
"Already done"? Are you suggesting we should have been searching through your past HN comments for anti-Rust content?
Your prior comment notes two issues re: Rust: 1. "A core problem with Rust is the lack of an adequate standard library." and 2. "The problem with Cargo is when you have an application with hundreds of dependencies."
I'd say -- I'm not sure either is a problem in the kernel/the true object of this discussion. Re:1, as you may know, the Rust standard library isn't used re: the kernel. The kernel has its own Rust library, just like C has its own Rust library, klibc. C also has a much smaller standard library than Rust. C has nothing like Rust's collections or C++'s containers. Re: 2, I'm pretty sure the Rust for Linux team doesn't use Cargo for kernel code. The team simply vendors is deps.
The video to which you linked is a reaction video of René Rebe to an article re: Rust. Let's be very clear -- Rene's issue had nothing to do with kernel space programming. Rene discussed Cargo in the context of the userspace tools for bcachefs, and why he doesn't particularly like what he sees as Rust's culture of micro dependencies. He also doesn't like Cargo as a build system, which auto-downloads deps from the cloud. Which is fair enough, but I think we can agree this is not really an issue re: Rust in the Linux kernel.
I would further argue that composition is a feature of Rust. To put it mildly, C is not known for being easily composed. In C, you often just write something yourself, because C doesn't compose well with your app.
> ... and then the developer sharing this content was the victim of an attempted SWAT
What exactly are you suggesting? That, because you shared this content 25 days ago, that was the reason Rene was SWAT-ed?
> Veteran developer Drew DeVault, founder and CEO of SourceHut and a critic of Rust in the Linux kernel
> I am known to be a bit of a polemic when it comes to Rust
> Rust will eventually fail to the “jack of all trades, master of none” problem that C++ has. Wise languages designers start small and stay small. Wise systems programmers extend this philosophy to designing entire systems, and Rust is probably not going to be invited. I understand that many people, particularly those already enamored with Rust, won’t agree with much of this article. But now you know why we are still writing C, and hopefully you’ll stop bloody bothering us about it.
1. Rust-for-Linux developer Wedson Almeida Filho drops out - https://lwn.net/Articles/987635/
2. Airlie: On Rust, Linux, developers, maintainers - https://lwn.net/Articles/987849/
LWN never once mentioned any blogs or opinions from kernel developers or otherwise unless they were in support of Rust. There has also never been an article highlighting the very real challenges not only with Rust but also the attempt to integrate it into the Linux kernel project. Scroll the home page for recent articles and it's pretty evident where the bias exists.
Meanwhile, The Register[3] cited at least Drew DeVault among others:
3. https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/rust_for_linux_mainta...
Yes, The Register wrote a more balanced article on the topic than LWN.
> He’s no more an evangelist for Rust than Linus is
Linus does not have a personal website where he is only publishing positive articles about Rust.