If I'm writing new software I'm necessarily developing something that's not yet a package in any distro, so I don't necessarily want to be using distro tools to build it.
I also strongly disagree with the characterization that it's "easy" to modify and recompile "any" package in a given distro - typically, someone would prefer to modify the upstream and build it (which may not be possible with the distro's supplied tools) and use the modified version. Distributions in my experience are quite bad about shipping software that's "easy" to be modified by users.
It's a gross mischaracterization of the ecosystem to suggest that many Rust projects require "bleeding-edge nightly" to build. Kernel modules have a moderate list of unstable features that are required but many (all?) have already been stabilized or on the path to stabilization so you don't need a "bleeding edge" nightly.
In my opinion the lagging nature of distros illustrates one of the fundamental problems of relying on them for developing software, but hey, that's an ideological point.
> Kernel modules have a moderate list of unstable features that are required but many (all?) have already been stabilized or on the path to stabilization so you don't need a "bleeding edge" nightly.
One of the features in the "Required" section was "added as unstable in 1.81", a version released three weeks ago. Presumably that means you need a nightly build that's newer than (or at least close to the release of) Rust 1.81, which seems pretty bleeding-edge to me.
I sure hope none of those "paths to stabilization" involve making any changes to the unstable features, because then release versions of the Linux kernel would be stuck pinning random old nightly builds of the Rust compiler. That seems even worse than depending on bleeding-edge ones.
I also strongly disagree with the characterization that it's "easy" to modify and recompile "any" package in a given distro - typically, someone would prefer to modify the upstream and build it (which may not be possible with the distro's supplied tools) and use the modified version. Distributions in my experience are quite bad about shipping software that's "easy" to be modified by users.
It's a gross mischaracterization of the ecosystem to suggest that many Rust projects require "bleeding-edge nightly" to build. Kernel modules have a moderate list of unstable features that are required but many (all?) have already been stabilized or on the path to stabilization so you don't need a "bleeding edge" nightly.
In my opinion the lagging nature of distros illustrates one of the fundamental problems of relying on them for developing software, but hey, that's an ideological point.