Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 16, 2024 11:20 UTC (Sat) by atnot (subscriber, #124910)
In reply to: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++ by paulj
Parent article: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

I can't say how representive this is, probably more prevalent in the long tail than I'd like, but I at least have been silently reading this discussion with a mixture of bewilderment and disgust.

I feel like this sort of thing is an area where there is a huge disconnect between people actually involved with the rust project or any projects of note (like e.g. Steve Klabnik, who condemned this strongly in the blog post linked) and a certain genre of poster especially prevalent on places like reddit, where this kicked off. It's really the usual contept culture stuff we see all day in all programming communities[1], but it's really disheartening to see from a community that I feel should be able to do better. It doesn't help that people feel emboldened and righteous by how genuinely important of a cause memory safety is either.

[1] If anyone hasn't read it yet: https://blog.aurynn.com/2015/12/16-contempt-culture/

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 16, 2024 12:19 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

> I feel like this sort of thing is an area where there is a huge disconnect between people actually involved with the rust project or any projects of note (like e.g. Steve Klabnik, who condemned this strongly in the blog post linked) and a certain genre of poster especially prevalent on places like reddit, where this kicked off.

How do you know there's a disconnect? I'm pretty sure that Steve is genuine in his grief. He is just not the person who would do things like that. I don't think he ever objected to what Kim is doing, publicly or privately.

But how do you know what others are thinking? I know for the fact that many of them would be fired if they would say what Redditers easily say… and you want to say that people placed in this position are the ones words of whom we should trust?

I consider Reddit posts closer to what people actually think: on Reddit people may say things without fear of retaliation because Reddit doesn't give others an easy way to use DIE department of speaker's company to silence said speaker.

Yet Reddit does give an option to silence people who stray out of the line. And if you go against the majority you would be silenced. But that wouldn't be because one person who hates your guts used the evidence that your are not “tolerant enough” against you.

Thus that easy threat: be nice even to the guys who may destroy your community or else you would be fired? That's not possible on Reddit. Or LWN for that matter.

But that's only not possible for people who keep their real identity separated from your Reddit (or LWN) identity. Once someone knows who you are… DIE departments are always watching. These are the real uncontrollable Inquisition that accelerate the downfall of the modern society that they supposedly serve.

You couldn't trust a word of anyone who is under threat to DIE from his words.

P.S. That's why I celebrate what Rust achieved there. 20 or maybe even 10 years ago it wouldn't have been an achievement. But today, when voices of everyone who may act as authority and stop language abuse easily are forcibly silenced… to do what Rust community managed to achieve is not easy.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 16, 2024 22:23 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> P.S. That's why I celebrate what Rust achieved there. 20 or maybe even 10 years ago it wouldn't have been an achievement. But today, when voices of everyone who may act as authority and stop language abuse easily are forcibly silenced… to do what Rust community managed to achieve is not easy.

So you're happy celebrating a witch hunt. The ONLY thing this guy did wrong was to publish his pet project in the hope that other people would find it useful. And he got loads of abuse from people who thought what he was trying to achieve was conpletely unacceptable. I sure as hell hope you enjoy being a witch-finder. Because hell is where witch-finders are likely to end up.

Unfortunately, this is just the "me me me" politically correct and toxic side of Free Software. I just wish we could kick that out ...

Cheers,
Wol

This might be a good stopping point

Posted Mar 17, 2024 6:29 UTC (Sun) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

This post suggests we're reaching (if not going beyond) the point where it might be a good idea to wind down this conversation. I don't think there's much more to be said that might change anybody's mind.