Programming language Rust is alienating "stupid corporate normies"
The eighth annual State of Rust survey has released, with some positives and negatives for the community. The number of people using Rust, both in general and at work, has increased, but the language is becoming more complex and alienating some people who have yet to adopt it.
93.4% of survey respondents said they used Rust; it's an implicitly biased sample, but the figure is up 2.6 percentage points from last year's survey. People using Rust at work are up even more, at 62% compared to 56.9% in 2022.
The most common reason for not taking up Rust was that it's too difficult, and they had no time to learn it, which 30.9% of respondents blamed for their failure to get to grips with the language.
Click here to sign up to our technology newsletter 🔧
Another, reason people aren't getting into Rust is its community. While the community being "rude, unwelcoming or otherwise off-putting" was the least cited reason for not picking the language up last year, the rudeness is proliferating. 6.4% of respondents cited Rust's rude community as a reason not to learn the language in 2023, compared to 3% in 2022.
While toxic Rust users are a minority, they can be vocal. One commenter called NVIDIA "stupid corporate normies" for replacing C with Ada instead of their darling. One Hackerrnews user critiqued someone's code by saying, "not even Rust can fix stupid." A C++ engineer said that, while the "vast majority" of Rust devs are nice, "boy are there some obnoxious Rust evangelists out there." Rust has been said to have "a religion around memory safety" that's closer to "a cult."
Are these concerns exaggerated to give the community a bad name? Or have you experienced any toxicity from Rust advocates yourself? Let us know in the comments (and try to be nice...)
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.).
