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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   27562 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025

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I’m not sure this is culture war, beyond the degree to which Emacs vs. vim is culture war. That said, Rust has never really appealed to me. It strikes me more as a B&D C++ alternative than a C alternative, and I was somewhat surprised when Linus decided to allow it. I think that there is room for a systems language with the spirit of C but fewer undefined behaviors and better ergonomics around things like array bounds and bit bashing, but I don’t think any of C’s would-be successors has quite found the niche yet.

More on topic, I think that @FistfullOfCrows’ observation about Rust’s leadership is apropos. I usually take a code of conduct in open source projects as a statement that this is a self-consciously progressive space and that even relatively tactful (for programmers) dissent is unacceptable. Consequently I assume that I am not wanted there; I may still use the software depending on what it does, but I am not likely to provide bug reports, patches, or donations.

How seriously I take that depends on context. In Python I think that Guido, while a progressive sort of guy, is a restraining force; but since he has resigned the role of benevolent dictator, things have gotten messier. The FreeBSD CoC generated enough backlash and reassurances that I still take its implications with a grain of salt. SQLite’s code of ethics, by contrast, countersignals the code of conduct trend quite strongly, and it even managed to get lots of positive comments on HackerNews doing so.

For Rust, though? It’s not lost on me that Rust used to be a Mozilla project, and everything I see suggests that the culture that pushed out Brendan Eich lives on there. They’re not hiding their power level.

It’s not lost on me that Rust used to be a Mozilla project, and everything I see suggests that the culture that pushed out Brendan Eich lives on there.

Yeah unfortunately this is very much the case. I like the Rust programming language, but the Rust community is incredibly toxic. One of the worst communities online imo.

It strikes me more as a B&D C++ alternative than a C alternative,

If you are really into this sort of thing, you should consider Ada/SPARK: Rust is cavalier enough to let the programmer engage in potential integer overflows (in default production mode) and doesn't support specifying custom valid ranges (type my_integer is range -3 to 11).

In actuality, I like what they're aiming for, but I expect most of the benefit I'll personally see will be from upping the safety game of C++ (and C, to a lesser extent) via language extensions, automated tooling, and general best practices. I reflexively write tests, use C++11 pointer types, check pointers for nullptr before dereferencing, and use the .at() bounds-checked methods for container elements unless performance is impacted. That said, I do occasionally cause segfaults, still.

Cynical take about the open source programming languages world

The best systems engineers are trans and mentally unwell. Appearing progressive is how you keep them productive instead of spiralling. The 2nd best systems engineers are virgin gooners. Appearing progressive gives them a chance to be around women. The 3rd best systems engineers are m-lady neck beards. Appearing progressive is how they simp.

Everyone else who's good enough to be developing the rust lang is getting paid millions at a quant firm or millions at an llm frontier lab.

Surface level progressivism is win-win stable state for open source PL.

This is a semi-recent change. Two decades ago, hacker spaces were notoriously libertarian. The lesson of open source and the internet in general is that libertarians are utterly unable to defend against progressive take-over.

I think being mentally off is the cause of both the systems engineering skill and the trans.

The best systems engineers are trans and mentally unwell.

Objection: Fabrice Bellard is quite obviously not trans and nothing suggests he's mentally unwell either. The guy makes John Carmack look like a noob.

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