[hitekker]

Much of that bad blood comes from how Rust's leadership attacks other programming languages, online and offline.

pcwalton infamously declared zig was "a massive step back for the industry" https://x.com/pcwalton/status/1568306598795431936?s=46&t=OCi.... He and the Rust Core Team had a big reputation for burning bridges. Even to this day, the new Rust leaders are happy to attack other memory safe languages like Go, declaring them "not memory safe" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4467200

I think Kristoff remembers these attacks, and crucially how very few voices within the Rust community push back against Rust supremacism.

[zozbot234]

> infamously declared zig was "a massive step back for the industry"

> [Golang] "not memory safe"

Both of these are entirely fair assessments, not "attacks". Golang really does have memory safety issues with concurrent code, and a memory-unsafe language like Zig is a step back even compared to Java/C#, let alone Rust.

[hitekker]

It's an entirely fair assessment within a framework of supremacism. "My language is the best. People who don't use it need to learn it. If they don't, they're bad programmers, maybe even bad people." It's a ugly spirit that no one is honest enough to admit to. But it's there. A few month ago, I saw a supposedly nice Rust leader calling SQLite "a terrible example of anything other than what you can accomplish when you pour enormous resources into a single C library."

The end result is that Rust's leaders either avoid interacting with other languages, or engage in flamewars. I think it's a big reason why Java, the most popular and successful memory safe language in the world, has little-to-no formal contacts with the Rust team.

[baranul]

There are a couple things about that take, that many would say deserves push back on: (1) Rust supremacism has been aimed at many other languages, not just Zig in particular. It's been a wide spray. (2) Many would say that Zig's leadership has done similar to what you are saying about Rust. Very clear examples have been the relentless unleashing on Vlang and its creator, and to a lesser extent on C3.

What might be the better critique about this, is that any programming language's leadership should not be engaging in that kind of bad behavior. And any ill words coming from them about another language, should always be taken with a grain of salt and seen as likely bias.

[littlestymaar]

“Zig not being memory safe” is what's being called “a massive setback for the industry”.

Maybe you can make a hierarchy between technical criticism like this and the fact that Go isn't technically memory-safe[1], with Loris' abusive behavior of calling Rust maintainers names like “wankers”…

[1]: which is a criticism mostly coming from the Java crowd, by the way, not Rust, like the criticism of the simplistic garbage collection management in Go

[mi_lk]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4467200 is not about Go/memory safe btw

[hitekker]

Good catch, the link should go to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44672003 (the 3 was missing)

[littlestymaar]

> Rust supremacism.

I can't believe you really wrote that.

[hitekker]

It's true. Or rather, it's the emergent behavior of the community. Other languages typically don’t openly say, in writing:

> Then [Anti Rust person] should have been perma-banned long ago [on an open forum]. Until this is done, we'll have to warn people about engaging with him…

You can hate kristoff, ignore him or attack his arguments. You can also love a piece of software and treat it as sacred. But other people should not be subjected to that love nor should they be canceled on account of it. Flag it or downvote. Beyond that, it's outside of our control.

I do agree though that kristoff should focus on Zig and not indulge in provoking old enemies. His valid points— deferring premature documentation for newbies until concepts are ironed out— are being lost in programming language holy wars.

[littlestymaar]

> Other languages typically don’t openly say, in writing:

I'm no language though…

> You can hate kristoff, ignore him or attack his arguments. You can also love a piece of software and treat it as sacred.

It's not about “love” or “being sacred” or even about Rust or Zig, it is about behaving in society. Most successful communities at some point meet toxic people who want to start holly wars and insult people. Successful communities are the one who ban those people, or at least coerce them into behaving through social pressure.

When you don't do that, you end up with bullies like Loris occupying prominent positions, and that's very bad for the community because it attracts people like that.

It has nothing to do with programming languages at all.

And sorry to say that bluntly, your discourse about “supremacism” “love” or “sacred” sounds very immature: programming languages are tools and engineering projects, not icons that should be worshipped or hated, they all have their strong points and warts (and god knows Rust has its share of annoyances…). Don't get dragged in holy wars by cult leaders like Loris.