Comment by littlestymaar

6 months ago

> That gnarly horrid mess that only a few greybeards grok and has massive test coverage, a long tail of requirements enforced by tests and experience, and a culture of extreme rigor? Longer reviews, more rollbacks, and less likely to be rewritten.

I'd say that this is likely the most likely to be rewritten actually, because high test coverage is a massive enabler in such a rewrite, and because having a project that “only a few greybeards grok” sounds like a big organizational liability.

That being said, and while I'm pretty convinced that Rust bring massive benefits, I agree with you that these measurements shouldn't be taken as if it was a rigorous scientific proof. It's more of one additional anecdotal evidence that Rust is good.

> It's more of one additional anecdotal evidence that Rust is good.

But that means it's likely to be the worst kind of science:

- Group of people agree that Rust is good. This is a belief they hold.

- Same group of people feel the need to search for argument that their belief is good.

- The group does "science" like this.

And then the rest of us have a data point that we think we can trust, when in reality, it's just cherry picked data being used to convey an opinion.

  • > And then the rest of us have a data point that we think we can trust, when in reality, it's just cherry picked data being used to convey an opinion.

    Calling what Google did here "science" and cherry picked is quite a disservice. It's observational data, but do you have any objection to the methodology they used? Or just (assumed?) bad vibes?