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Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by bitwize on Friday March 21, 2025 @07:56PM (#43441971)
This is verging on conspiracy theory. There are a number of reasons why someone might migrate to uutils that have nothing to do with muh freedoms:

1) Safety. With a Rust replacement, there's no more risk that a UAF CVE in ls(1) can run arbitrary code as you or something.

2) Modernity. Maintaining a crufty old C code base might have been par for the course in the 90s, but today's younger programmers will have none of it. Standardizing on a Rust base will ensure you have a large maintainer pool going into the future.

3) The GNU Project is problematic. It's just about run its course in terms of relevance, and especially with the larger number of women (cis and otherwise) and nonbinary folx doing work in open source, aligning yourself with anything involving Richard Stallman presents an ethical sticky wicket. An alternative is called for, and uutils presents one with some nice properties relating to 1) and 2) above.

Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by knowknow on Friday March 21, 2025 @08:04PM (#43442026)
These comments are frightening since they throw away decades worth of work and stability for whatever is being advocated for right now. How do we know that we can trust Rust developers to actively maintain a project when they seem eager to follow whatever the most current thing is? It’s the same situation with the Asahi Linux lead dev that quit at temporary pushback. There’s no faith that they will actually be committed to it.
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by kouteiheika on Friday March 21, 2025 @08:28PM (#43442167)
> when they seem eager to follow whatever the most current thing is?

Rust hit 1.0 *10 years ago*. How many more years will it take for people to stop constantly insinuating that people only use it because of the hype, and not simply because it's a vastly better language than C?

Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by knowknow on Friday March 21, 2025 @08:45PM (#43442272)
My problem has nothing to do with the language, I think it’s wonderful. But people who are Rust evangelists push the language everywhere, regardless of it’s appropriate or if the maintainers actually want to use it. So yes, most people who advocate it for everything are mainly doing it due to hype rather than its benefits. Especially when people act as if it’s a morally wrong not to use Rust. 10 years isn’t long at all for a language.
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by nindalf on Saturday March 22, 2025 @03:54AM (#43444261)
I’ve seen this sentiment be expressed often but I don’t see any merit behind the argument.

It boils down “this language may have merit but I don’t like the way people advocate for it”. That’s just tone policing. And the thing about tone police is that the standard they set is vague/nebulous and therefore impossible to satisfy.

You have some “right way to advocate” in mind. Other tone police have some other “right way”. But advocates aren’t mind readers, nor can they satisfy all your demands simultaneously.

> push the language everywhere, regardless of it’s appropriate

Where is the language inappropriate? Notice you don’t say, so while it sounds like you’re making a technical argument it sounds like a pensioner whining about kids on his lawn.

That’s all this really boils down to. The whiners don’t have any technical arguments, they’re just old conservatives who like the way things have always been and want to keep it that way. In place of technical arguments they say silly things like “of the millions of rust developers out there, I didn’t like a few comments made by some of them”. Cool.

Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by knowknow on Saturday March 22, 2025 @11:16AM (#43446315)
The fact that you accuse everyone who disagrees with you of being “old conservatives” makes it obvious that you come from a place of so much bad faith that I want nothing to do with you or give any credence to any argument you have. This is a prime example of how rust evangelist treat not using Rust as a moral wrong and why Rust developers are insufferable. I rather write in a supposedly suboptimal language than dealing with those like you.
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by nindalf on Saturday March 22, 2025 @02:09PM (#43447492)
Haha, in other words, you object to my tone. Got it.

See, you’ve proven my point perfectly. You’re incapable of making a technical argument so you focus on the tone - “evangelist”, “bad faith”, “insufferable”.

> I rather write in a supposedly suboptimal language than dealing with those like you.

To be clear, you can download the compiler for free and write all the programs you like while interacting with 0 people. You’re talking to me because you’re on HN, not because you’re writing Rust. Isn’t that obvious?

Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by desumeku on Saturday March 22, 2025 @06:41PM (#43449234)
Tone is important. You are insufferable. I am 21 years old and would also rather write C and hang around the "old conservatives" than be in a community of people who talk about others the way you do.
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by nindalf on Sunday March 23, 2025 @04:27AM (#43451557)
Let’s be clear about what I’m calling out. I prefer to keep technical discussions technical. Let’s talk about technical merits like performance, security, maintainability, ease of learning. All of these are valid parameters to judge a technology.

“I don’t like the way some people speak” is not a technical reason and has no place in a technical discussion. It’s especially meaningless because no one can possibly like the way every person in a group of millions speaks.

A person who eschews technical discussion in favour of tone policing is not a person whom I take seriously. If you want to hang out with and learn from such people I wish you luck. Your age doesn’t matter. A 20 year old can have their thinking ossified just as much as a 60 year old.

Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by PaulDavisThe1st on Friday March 21, 2025 @08:35PM (#43442209)
Partly because some of its advocates say things like:

> it's a vastly better language than C

when they could just say "it has some important features that C does not have and likely will never have".

Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by kouteiheika on Friday March 21, 2025 @11:17PM (#43443075)
I don't follow. So you think it cannot be possibly a vastly better language than C, and the only reason people are saying that is because of the hype?
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by dmitrygr on Friday March 21, 2025 @11:44PM (#43443255)
"Better" implies an unambiguous "goodness" metric, which does not exist. People who still use such language are thus implying that their opinion and their definition of "good" is the only correct one.
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by dmitrygr on Friday March 21, 2025 @10:17PM (#43442676)
Honest answer: when the first adherents of it are fully retired, so we can truly see if it has staying power with the next generation of engineers. C has passed this test.
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by desumeku on Saturday March 22, 2025 @06:45PM (#43449258)
Rust is supposedly post-1.0 but it still doesn't have a standard that isn't just documenting the output of the compiler.
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by desumeku on Friday March 21, 2025 @08:03PM (#43442017)
This post reads like parody, but unfortunately people really believe this. I hope the young "nonbinary folx" have fun enjoying their Rust replacements for ls, while they neglect learning the language that actually powers the Linux kernel and corporations exploit their MIT licensing for their own benefit.
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by PaulDavisThe1st on Friday March 21, 2025 @08:33PM (#43442202)
How much of the GNU Project was "presented by" Stallman? What would your threshold be where, if the figure was larger, using it would be unacceptable, but if smaller, it would be OK ?
Re:Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default by metroholografix on Friday March 21, 2025 @08:39PM (#43442233)
Stallman has done more to safeguard our freedoms than all the critics and corporations that are happy to exploit his work put together.

He’s also been extremely prescient and decades ahead of his time. He stood his ground against relentless attacks where so many others have sold out and betrayed whatever morals they thought they had.