Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 23, 2017 16:40 UTC (Thu) by jubal (subscriber, #67202)
In reply to: Toward a more approachable Rust by jnareb
Parent article: Toward a more approachable Rust

This is a common soundbite, but I've yet to see any proof of that.

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 23, 2017 19:04 UTC (Thu) by Beolach (guest, #77384) [Link] (9 responses)

From ESR's blog: NTPsec dodges 8 of 11 CVEs because we’d pre-hardened the code.

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 23, 2017 19:36 UTC (Thu) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

You can find many things on ESR's blog.

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 23, 2017 20:55 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (7 responses)

...One person's "bloat" is another person's "essential feature".

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 23, 2017 21:30 UTC (Thu) by Beolach (guest, #77384) [Link] (6 responses)

Of course. And to quote NTPsec's Removal Plans page:

If something on this list is important to you, tell us. If the complexity cost of keeping it is low, you win. If the complexity cost is high, then we will need a donation of engineering time or money to support keeping it in the codebase.

If your essential feature is on that list & you can't convince NTPsec to agree, then keep using NTP Classic. Or Chrony or OpenNTPD or whatever does still support your essential feature. Personally I really like having multiple implementations to choose from.

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 23, 2017 23:40 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (5 responses)

Sure, that's a reasonable attitude to take.

But it is rather disingenuous to claim that NTPsec is superior to NTPd because the latter has bugs in features that the former lacks altogether.

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 24, 2017 1:16 UTC (Fri) by Beolach (guest, #77384) [Link] (4 responses)

I disagree. Specifically for NTPsec, at least some of the "features" removed don't work in NTP Classic anyway, at least according to NTPsec on that same Removal Plans page. Autokey & ntpsnmpd are maybe debatable (for me they're not close to essential features & I'm not informed enough on them to debate whether or not they work in NTP Classic myself), but look at the reasons they give for removing the refclocks - I have a hard time seeing how all those refclocks would work in NTP Classic either, so keeping the code serves no purpose. And I could be misremembering, but I believe at least 1 of the "8 CVEs dodged" was from a refclock driver.

But also in general principle, I strongly believe in minimalism/KISS/UNIX philosophy. If you say my bloat is your essential feature, fine - I'm perfectly willing to believe you, and I hope you can find or create an implementation that does include your feature & works for you (and as I said above, I really do like multiple implementations, and I view monopolies as unhealthy). But I'm also going to emphasize that the converse is equally true - one person's "essential feature" is another's "bloat", and just because I'm willing to believe it is essential to you, doesn't mean I'm willing to accept it being forced on me. And from reading the bit I quoted above, I think NTPsec is being quite reasonable about listening to arguments about what is "essential". So no, I don't think it's "disingenuous to claim that NTPsec is superior to NTPd because the latter has bugs in features that the former lacks altogether."

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 24, 2017 11:16 UTC (Fri) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] (3 responses)

Can we please stop using the terminology ESR coined to help himself hijack another project? Thanks in advance.

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 24, 2017 20:40 UTC (Fri) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (2 responses)

You seem very invested in this conversation, despite the fact you haven't done anything but insult others in it...

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 25, 2017 1:27 UTC (Sat) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] (1 responses)

While my opinion of ESR (both of his professional qualities and his social graces) is indeed rather low, but I don't think I have insulted anyone here.

Toward a more approachable Rust

Posted Feb 26, 2017 2:49 UTC (Sun) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

I agree. It reflects well on correspondents here that ESR gets more courtesy than he deserves. Courtesy need not extend to adopting his framing.