News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Rust's 2019 Roadmap by whatshisface on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @03:06PM (#19731772)
One of my biggest concerns about the Rust project is that their governance is getting more and more complicated. Every language so far that I like was orchestrated by a BDFL, and the ones that aren't so well-designed (C++, Java) also happen to be elaborately governed. How can the Rust project be sure that it isn't going to smother itself with working groups to decide the color of the bikeshed that committee members park their bikes in on the way to meet about the code of conduct?
Re:Rust's 2019 Roadmap by steveklabnik on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @03:09PM (#19731805)
The language itself is still designed primarily by the language team, which is not many people. If anything, the team is large because we see Rust as more than just the language. The language you like that’s designed by the BDFL doesn’t generally have the BDFL make all decisions about the package manager, or the website, or the documentation, or the conferences. It’s just not humanly possible.

We have the core team to provide overall oversight over all of these teams to ensure things are coherent.

Re:Rust's 2019 Roadmap by woah on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @06:41PM (#19733719)
JavaScript went from being a bad language designed by a BDFL to a good language designed by a very large committee.

It’s not the best language ever, but it is better at this point than similar languages such as Python or Ruby (good async, good type system, good module system, no decades-long versioning crisis).

The last part of your comment hints that your objections to Rust’s governance may be more political than language design related.

Re:Rust's 2019 Roadmap by whatshisface on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @07:27PM (#19734038)
>The last part of your comment hints that your objections to Rust’s governance may be more political than language design related.

I checked the code of conduct and it didn't seem too political to me, internet forums have had those kinds of rules for decades. What it is, though, is an example of an administrative artifact, too many of which will suck energy away as top level people spend more and more of their time not thinking about the end product.

[dead]
Re:Rust's 2019 Roadmap by jamescostian on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @02:20AM (#19736011)
I looked through their code of conduct to see what would give you that idea, and the closest thing I could find is this:

> We will exclude you from interaction if you insult, demean or harass anyone. [...] In particular, we don't tolerate behavior that excludes people in socially marginalized groups.

Are you worried that non-marginalized groups will be harassed when contributing to Rust? Could you give some examples of harassment you worry will be tolerated when non-marginalized people do it but not when marginalized people do it?

Re:Rust's 2019 Roadmap by lone_haxx0r on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @01:26PM (#19740723)
I am worried that when non-marginalized groups are harassed, the punishment won't be as severe as harassing someone who is from a marginalized group.

I'm not the one who needs to give examples. They stated that they particularly "don't tolerate excluding people in socially marginalized groups". So, I imply that they are going to be more strict against this behavior in that specific case, otherwise there would be no use in making that point.

For example:

"We will exclude you from interaction if you insult, demean or harass anyone."

Is a perfectly understandable clause, and no further information would be needed in case they were not planning on discriminating based on the "group" that people belong to.

It's analogous to saying: "Killing is bad, it's particularly bad if the person you kill is a politician."

It implies that killing a politician is morally worse than killing someone else. If you didn't want to imply that, you would simply say "Killing is bad", which everyone can understand.