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Comment by bayindirh

3 hours ago

IIRC, it was not about Rust vs. C, but a commotion rooted from patch quality and not pushing people around about things.

Linux Kernel team has this habit of a forceful pushback which breaks souls and hearts when prodded too much.

Looks like Hector has deleted his Mastodon account, so I can't look back what he said exactly.

Oh, I still have the relevant tab open. It's about code quality: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43043312

6 comments

bayindirh

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chippiewill  1 hour ago

That was a single message in a very large thread. It absolutely was not just about code quality.

  • bayindirh  1 hour ago

    Yes, that's the entry of the rabbit hole, and reader is advised to dig their own tunnel.

    I remember following the tension for a bit. Yes, there are other subjects about how things are done, but after reading it, I remember framing "code quality" as the base issue.

    In high-stakes software development environments, egos run high generally, and when people clash and doesn't back up, sparks happen. If this warning is ignored, then something has to give.

    If I'm mistaken, I can enjoy a good explanation and be gladly stand corrected.

    This is what happened here. This is probably the second or third time I witness this over 20+ years. Most famous one was over CPU schedulers, namely BFS, again IIRC.

iurbwdj  27 minutes ago

https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/6/1292

  • bayindirh  5 minutes ago

    Yes. I remember that message.

    Some pretext: I'm a Rust skeptic and tired of Rust Evangelism Task Force and Rewrite in Rust movements.

    ---

    Also let's not forget what marcan said [0] [1].

    In short, a developer didn't want their C codebase littered with Rust code, which I can understand, then the Rust team said that they can maintain that part, not complicating his life further (Kudos to them), and the developer lashing out to them to GTFO of "his" lawn (which I understand again, not condone. I'd have acted differently).

    This again boils down to code quality matters. Rust is a small child when compared to the whole codebase, and weariness from old timers is normal. We can discuss behaviors till the eternity, but humans are humans. You can't just standardize everything.

    Coming to marcan, how he behaved is a big no in my book, too. Because it's not healthy. Yes, the LKML is not healthy, but this is one of the things which makes you wrong even when you're right.

    I'm also following a similar discussion list, which has a similar level of friction in some matters, and the correct thing is to taking some time off and touching grass when feeling tired and being close to burnout. Not running like a lit torch between flammable people.

    One needs to try to be the better example esp. when the environment is not in an ideal shape. It's the hardest thing to do, but it's the most correct path at the same time.

    [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250205004552mp_/https://lwn.ne...

    [1]: https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/6/404