I like Rust the language, and i have found most people in the community to be smart and reasonable. But i also find "Rustaceans" to be rather cringe. I don't think it's specific to Rust; i think this need to form a visible community identity, a brand really, is very common in Silicon Valley culture. Hence why most startups there have cutesy names for employees, people go round sticking logos of software they use on their laptops, etc.

The crab is cool though. As language mascots go, it's a lot more adorable than the Gopher or that LISP alien thing, and almost as adorable as Bjarne Stroustrup.

Ahh yes. Unlike the pythonistas, the gophers, the ziguanas, the lispers, the perl monks, ...

Being put off by the evangelizing I can certainly understand – but surely the name "rustaceans" is just some innocent humor.

In order to be one of the cool kids you have to identify as one. From my point of view the self identifying and adopting a title is key to the indoctrination process.

> In order to be one of the cool kids you have to identify as one.

You really don't? Every time I read a comment like this, I think, "Who hurt you?"