[ramon156]

I'm a long-time Rust fan and have no idea how to respond. I think I need a lot more info about this migration, especially since Ladybird devs have been very vocal about being "anti-rust" (I guess more anti-hype, where Rust was the hype).

I don't know if it's a good fit. Not because they're writing a browser engine in Rust (good), but because Ladybird praises CPP/Swift currently and have no idea what the contributor's stance is.

At least contributing will be a lot nicer from my end, because my PR's to Ladybird have been bad due to having no CPP experience. I had no idea what I was doing.

[cardanome]

> I guess more anti-hype, where Rust was the hype

Yeah that is the thing I struggle with. I am really happy for people falling in love with Rust. It is a amazing language when used for the right use case.

The problem is that had my Rust adventures a few years ago and I am over the hype cycle and able to see both the advantages and disadvantages. Plus being generally older and hopefully wiser I don't tie my identity towards any specific programming language that much.

So sometimes when some Junior dev discovers Rust and they get really obnoxious with their evangelicalism it can be very off putting. Really not sure how to solve it. It is good when people get excited about a language. It just can be very annoying for everyone else sometimes.

[geertj]

> So sometimes when some Junior dev discovers Rust and they get really obnoxious with their evangelicalism it can be very off putting. Really not sure how to solve it. It is good when people get excited about a language. It just can be very annoying for everyone else sometimes.

This rings very true, and I've actually disadvantaged myself somewhat here. I was involved in projects that made very dubious decisions to rewrite large systems in Rust. This caused me to actively stay away from the language, and stick to C++, investing lots of time in overcoming its shortcomings.

Now years later, I started with Rust in a new project. And I must say, I like the language, I really like the tools, and I like the ecosystem. On some dimension I wish I would have done this sooner (but on the other hand, I think I have a better justification of "why Rust" now).

[bjackman]

I find the attitude of the Ladybird devs refreshing though, and it kinda aligns with my opinions about Rust.

I never fell in love with Rust or got particularly excited about adopting it. But, I just don't see a serious alternative (maybe Swift is fine for some cases but not in my field).

I believe Google's Rust journey was even more closely aligned with Ladybird: "we want memory safety, but with low impedance mismatch from C++". After like 5 years of trying to figure something like that out they seemed to go "OK actually fuck that we just have to use Rust and deal with the challenges it brings for a C++ shop".

[akst]

The whole obnoxious dogmatic evangelicalism thing is definitely a wider human phenomenon outside software and junior devs picking up new languages.

Definitely isn’t one of those things that can be solved, but it’s helpful to be aware of and process on that basis. I think some personalities are likely disproportionately vulnerable to this behaviour, but I think it largely has a positive core of enthusiasm. It’s probably more a matter of those individuals growing in self awareness.

Perhaps we saw a big wave of that with rust because it meant a lot of things to a lot of different people, some more equip to express their enthusiasm with some self control than others.

[virgil_disgr4ce]

I'm contemplating diving into Rust for a smallish project, a daemon with super-basic UI intended for Linux, MacOS and Windows. Do you mind expanding on what disadvantages you encountered? Or use-cases that aren't appropriate for Rust?

[Onavo]

> So sometimes when some Junior dev discovers Rust and they get really obnoxious with their evangelicalism it can be very off putting.

And experience doesn't equal correct decision making. People just get traumatized in different ways.

[latexr]

> Ladybird praises CPP/Swift currently

Not anymore.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47067678

[shevy-java]

They are moving fast.

Next month it will be yet-another-language.

Eventually they come full circle and settle for either C or C++.

[ramon156]

I guess I missed this, thanks!

[thrdbndndn]

I'd argue Ladybird itself is a "hype" project.

[Fervicus]

Anything trying to break the browser monopolies in a meaningful way deserves the hype, IMO.

[throwaway2037]

Fair point. What does Ladybird need to achieve in your opinion to shake the "hype" label? Honestly, I, myself, don't have a good answer!

[accelbred]

Its possible to dislike Rust but pragmatically use it. Personally, I do not like Rust, but it is the best available choice for some work and personal stuff.

[shevy-java]

I think this is a good, realistic point of view.

Personally I think most programming languages have really ... huge problems. And the languages that are more fun to use, ruby or python, are slow. I wonder if we could have a great, effective, elegant language that is also slow. All that try end up with e. g. with a C++ like language.

[voxelghost]

Definetly, thats how I have felt about and used C++ for most of my career. ( well except I dont select C++ for personal projects).

I wouldnt go as far as to say, I dont like Rust, but it doesnt come natural to me like many other languages do after several decades of experience.

[Levitating]

So what don't you like about it?

[smartmic]

I am somewhat concerned about the volatility. All three languages have their merits and each has a stable foundation that has been developed and established over many years. The fact that the programming language has been “changed” within a short period of time, or rather that the direction has been altered, does not inspire confidence in the overall continuity of Ladybird's design decisions.

[0x00cl]

Ladybird as a project is not that old, and it's still in pre-alpha, if they are going to make important changes then it's better now than later.

[jsheard]

> I am somewhat concerned about the volatility.

Not just volatility but also flip-flopping. Rust was explicitly a contender when they decided to go with Swift 18 months ago, and they've already done a 180 on it despite the language being more or less the same as it was.

[boxed]

There's been some fun volatility with the author over the years. I told him once that he might want to consider another language to which he replied slightly insultingly. Then he tried to write another language. Then he tried to switch from C++ to Swift, and now to Rust :P

[pkulak]

> I think I need a lot more info about this migration

Doesn't sound like it's some Fish-style, full migration to Rust of everything. Seems like they are just moving a couple parts over for evaluation, and then, going forward, making it an official project language that folks are free to use. They note that basically every browser already does that, so this isn't a huge shakeup.

[tvshtr]

This makes sense because GUI wise Rust isn't really here yet (but it's close).

[dougiejones]

TFA mentions "the contributor's" stance on Swift.

[ramon156]

But not the stance on Rust, which is something I'm wondering. I understand there's a core team assigned, but are the ~200 contributors okay with this migration?

[ursuscamp]

They abandoned Swift recently.

[Cyphase]

The public announcement was less then a week ago. Meanwhile in TFA:

> ... the entire port took about two weeks.

So he was ~halfway in when he made the Swift announcement.

[muyuu]

it's very odd that someone with no experience would take a big project like this and just jump to another language because he trusts the AI generated code of current models

if it works it works i guess, but it seems mad to me on the surface

[fmbb]

Why do you think the creator behind SerenityOS has no experience? I mean it’s not the most popular OS out there but he seems like a capable individual.

[jibal]

Did you read the OP? No trust, only thorough verification.

[swiftcoder]

> especially since Ladybird devs have been very vocal about being "anti-rust" (I guess more anti-hype, where Rust was the hype).

I mean, they seem mostly to be against anything that isn't C++'s peculiar brand of Object Oriented Programming?

(also against women and immigrants, but that's a different story)