Comment by coldtea

I like to not assume the worst, more so on HN, but I do run into a lot of situations elsewhere on the internet where "virtue signaling" just means "someone said something I don't like".

But generally I do like to wait to understand specifically what someone means before assuming.

so how should it be called, in good faith?

[dead]

> Maybe closed source is better.

I've had similar pissing matches in closed source development, instigated by me and not...

Often, these things get resolved or left simmering without any public visibility, so that's nice as a user. And there's usually a somewhat clear heirarchy of authority, where the boss can say I don't care who's right, do X; which resolves issues in ways that sometimes a technically minded open source project can't; that can often help with bikeshedding between usable options.

But sometimes you just keep working somewhere because deep in your heart of hearts you want to do it your way, and once that other person quits or maybe even goes on vacation, you can. And sometimes people endeavor to actively push that person out, which I guess I've seen on FOSS drama too, but office politics have a way of lurking under the surface more, IMHO.

> Seeing what it has become though… Maybe closed source is better.

You thought it was better in the past? Read up on the great ncurses maintainer drama. Or the NetBSD/OpenBSD split. Or FreeBSD/DragonflyBSD split. Or the Emacs forks, GNU libc forks, GCC fork, etc. etc. etc.

This kind of drama has always existed. Difficult people have always existed. And even good people have always been struggling with their emotions.

And in all my closed-source $dayjobs I've had to deal with all of that too. Sometimes significantly worse than I'm seeing here.

> Maybe closed source is better.

At least in some cases this is plausible. The money people get for working on closed source software irons out some issues, for example:

Some people who voluntarily work on open source code do it for self-actualization, which indicates that they have a strong desire to push their wishes through. This implies that a lot of drama gets involved if these people don't get their way.

> Seeing what it has become though...

Was it ever different? Not as far as I can remember at least. I think one of the main strengths of open source development is that it works despite the drama.

With open source projects, everybody is free to start their own fork over disagreements, and if the fork actually turns out to be objectively better it will replace the original project.

> Maybe closed source is better.

It's the same and worse over there, the drama just isn't public.

> "Maybe closed source is better."

I assure you it isn't; it really, really isn't. You don't see the drama because 1) it's behind closed doors and 2) because the people involved know their job is at risk if they cross the line.

I hate to mention this but closed source appears to involve humans too. I was disappointed when I discovered this as well.

FOSS devs put a lot of time in what they do and they are understandably attached to whether what they do is good/successful, at least in the same proportion the general population is (but arguably more due to how much dedication goes into FOSS, kind of by construction)

>Is your theory that rust makes people dramatic? Or that dramatic people like rust? What other options are there, if not coincidence?

There is a cognitive bias called "loyalty to the brand", in which it says that people prefer the things they have because they rationalize their choices to protect their sense of ego. When they invest time (or a lot of money) to something, they create an emotional connection, especially if that was a choice and not something imposed on it. It is choosing one thing about the other that leads to narratives about why you have done a certain thing, something that is usually connected to your self-image.

There are a number of cognitive trends that converge to create this behavior. This assignment effect appears when you feel that the things you have are superior to things you don't have. Another bias is the fallacy of irrecoverable costs. This happens when you spend time or money on something you don't want to have or don't want to do, but you can't avoid. For example, imagine that you spent time studying Rust. You will be "hooked" on the idea that given the time spent in this, it is better to defend the language, even if you imagine that it is not for all things.

To combat post-decisional dissonance, the feeling that you committed to one option when the other option could have been better, you strive to feel justified as to what you selected to reduce the anxiety created when questioning himself. All this forms a gigantic group of neurological associations, emotions, details of self-image and trends around the things you have.

> Is your theory that rust makes people dramatic? Or that dramatic people like rust?

Both, really. As a language that was designed from the ground up to be a replacement for C and C++ (thus implying that it's superior to these established languages), it positions itself as inherently "dramatic" and anti-establishment.

This obviously attracts these political activist types who love to insist that their way of thinking is the way forward, that everyone else was simply doing it wrong before they came along, and that anyone who questions their beliefs is an obvious enemy of progress who should be silenced at all costs. It's a cult, basically.

I think the second one is more likely. People choose languages and ecosystems which fit their way of thinking so naturally, the ecosystem shifts to that direction. This is a self-reinforcing loop :) (one can naturally see this in many languages when the language advocates say "you are just holding it wrong...")

I'm inclined towards the second explanation. But whatever the case may be, there really is an unusually high amount of drama in the Rust community. Maybe Rust just attracts really passionate nerds with a lack of social skills, IDK. But there's something going on there.

Probably just Berkson's paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox

I would argue the second.

I think it is a human trait to like to win arguments. In some card games, there is a thing called a trump card [1]. The trump card has this special ability to beat all other cards.

Rust has a kind of trump card: memory safety. If you get in an argument about code it is often possible to maneuver the argument in the direction of memory safety at which point the Rust advocate gets to default win the discussion.

I think this "trump card" aspect attracts a particular kind of person to advocate for Rust simply because they like to feel technically superior to others. Whenever they are in an argument, no matter what the context, they simply have to play the game: how can I make this technical argument about memory safety so that I can win by default.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_(card_games)