• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    -78 hours ago

    So now we’ve lost a very good developer, and the question of rust in the kernel remains unresolved. This is the worst possible outcome.

    • Semperverus
      link
      English
      40
      edit-2
      8 hours ago

      Part of being a good developer is the “working well with other human beings” part. Linus himself took a hiatus to improve himself in this area.

      Another part of being a good developer is to work within and adapting to the frameworks of an existing project, especially if you are joining at a later point. In this context, it would be the R4L folks joining the project known as “the Linux kernel.”

      Hector failed on both counts. He has programming skills, but that’s not all that’s required.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        38 hours ago

        Sure, and part of being a good manager is to, you know, manage. It shouldn’t have gotten to the point that marcan is going outside the list to try to get something done. Linus (or someone else with authority, I’m not familiar with who else is managing it) should have stepped in much earlier to head off the drama. It was a very simple question.

        Rust in the kernel is already established and part of the mainline kernel. It’s extremely pretty and wholly inappropriate to reject code just because it’s written in rust.

        • Semperverus
          link
          English
          58 hours ago

          If you had read Christoph’s reasoning, it wasn’t “just because it’s written in Rust.” He actually gave some decent technical reasoning for it that went beyond his original personal outburst (which I hold him to the same standard as Hector for, but he did shore up later and fixed his communication).

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            225 minutes ago

            How do you figure?

            The only two “technical” arguments I could see were firstly that code should

            [remain] greppable and maintainable

            which unless I’m missing something boils down to “I don’t speak Rust”, and secondly that

            The only reason Linux managed to survive so long is by not having internal boundaries, and adding another language complely breaks this

            which unless I’m missing something boils down to “I don’t speak Rust”, because ain’t nobody trying to add any other languages to the Linux code base.

            Surely this can’t be the “decent technical reasoning” you are referring to? I have to admit I don’t follow kernel development that closely, but I was under the impression that integrating Rust into the code base was a long discussed initiative having the “official” blessing of the higher ups among the maintainers by now, so it seems odd to see it opposed in such harsh terms by a subsystem maintainer here:

            I absolutely support using Rust in new codebase, but I do not at all in Linux.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      17 hours ago

      I don’t think this is the worst outcome. It would have been worse if he was the face of Rust in Linux and I’d died out over ten years instead of one.

      That being said, hopefully it can get a fresh start.