What is the point of converting this software?
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@samir There is also the possibility that Rust as a language will evolve, fragment or move on from where it is now, leaving a large codebase marooned. Surely it needs a formalised ISO standard, and a group with a will to support that, before embarking on mass codebase conversions.
@kbm0 I think Rust’s editions are a good way to mitigate this: the language can evolve and the compiler can support older code. And I wouldn’t trust ISO to do a good job here. But I do think your sentiment is valid.
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@kbm0 I think Rust’s editions are a good way to mitigate this: the language can evolve and the compiler can support older code. And I wouldn’t trust ISO to do a good job here. But I do think your sentiment is valid.
@samir Nobody seems to trust ISO, but I suspect for the wrong reasons. The advantage is having to adhere to a standard that you can't change yourself. Otherwise do-ocracy has a tendency to keep things in constant flux.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir
People want to change things but they don't want to support the changed thingsI think people should stop venerating explosions as role models for our existence and do some work to fill the gaps they leave behind. But that's maintenance, and there's no glory or plunder in maintenance. That's all concentrated at the wavefront
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@samir Nobody seems to trust ISO, but I suspect for the wrong reasons. The advantage is having to adhere to a standard that you can't change yourself. Otherwise do-ocracy has a tendency to keep things in constant flux.
@kbm0 You’re probably right about this. I just despise them because they charge for standards documents which are necessary to do basic things. Like the C++ standard.
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@samir Nobody seems to trust ISO, but I suspect for the wrong reasons. The advantage is having to adhere to a standard that you can't change yourself. Otherwise do-ocracy has a tendency to keep things in constant flux.
@samir I also initially missed the AI slop element of this. There's little advantage in having memory safety if the program is not functionally correct. There are lots of other invariants besides memory safety and Rust won't help with those. It looks like an attempt at misdirection: Take a correct thing and mix with something incorrect and unfortunately you still end up with a pile of poo.
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@samir I also initially missed the AI slop element of this. There's little advantage in having memory safety if the program is not functionally correct. There are lots of other invariants besides memory safety and Rust won't help with those. It looks like an attempt at misdirection: Take a correct thing and mix with something incorrect and unfortunately you still end up with a pile of poo.
@kbm0 Oh yes, this is a terrible idea for many reasons. But even if the bot was perfect, it would still be pointless.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir "The Institute for Progress" sounds like another "effective altruism" wankfest.
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@samir "The Institute for Progress" sounds like another "effective altruism" wankfest.
@gpcureton I think you are probably spot on.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
-
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir
One more attempt to make AI relevant — by doing a job nobody wanted or needed. -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir "rust rewrite" is rapidly becoming a nebulously security-flavored term that people lacquer onto something indiscriminately, like "encryption" or "vpn". all things that are real and work and are good, but lacking any of the context of when or why they are good
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@sanityinc It’s gonna make a line go up somewhere, sadly.
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@samir "rust rewrite" is rapidly becoming a nebulously security-flavored term that people lacquer onto something indiscriminately, like "encryption" or "vpn". all things that are real and work and are good, but lacking any of the context of when or why they are good
@samir i don't this think this take will surprise anyone on fedi but this is looking more and more like they're just trying to solve the 'problem' of needing expertise and healthy culture to solve complicated domain specific problems. once upon a time you would handle this by doing things like hiring people & mentoring jr's & maintaining your spaces and stuff so there would be a constant flow of reliable people who do this type of thing
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
Burn AI written code, burn it in a furnace.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir thanks for pointing out the invisible work that keeps so many systems operating
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir fish has successfully been rewritten in Rust. By the maintainer, because he wanted to do it, bit by bit.
As you say, the people are the important part. Everyone wants to replace them with slop these days. Until the house of cards crashes down and the slop spills everywhere.
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R ActivityRelay shared this topic
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir I think there’s a lot of magical thinking about rust. ‘Rust is memory-safe’ is somehow enough on its own to outweigh all of the other reasons not to rewrite software from scratch, and all of the other potential sources of bugs get forgotten about.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir Thing is, we're not critical. We're fungible assets.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116030177478995194
What is the point of converting this software?
Who’s gonna maintain it?
Unless you have interest from the maintainers, you have a bunch of code that no one uses and no one maintains. Good job, folks.
I see nothing on these sites that explain how they hope to drum up maintenance, or even engage the maintainers of the original code.
Once again, the critical part of FOSS is ignored. It’s the people.
@samir I heard that Rust has one of those packaging systems like Python, NodeJS etc where anyone can simply upload a package for others to import, with no checking whatsoever. These are rife with abuse and if Rust indeed has an equivalent system, it is certainly not more secure.
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@datarama We better add another digit to the CVE numbers.
