Holy hell that title. When did critique become "hate-writing?" I do mostly agree with the article, though.
> If the person is spewing anger, try to minimize the harm done by that anger by either asking them to stop or removing yourself and others from observing or participating in it.
The fact that this is thought of the original piece and that people need to be told not to get passionate about a tool is deeply worrying.
> Imagine Rust was a kid you were sending to preschool.
No it's not. It's a tool. The problem here is that people are attaching emotions to tools and code, as though they were their spouse or children. Emotions are an irrational/illogical process, programming is rational/logical - don't mix the two.
Rust is doing just fine, some criticism levied against it is healthy. The tone of the criticism is completely irrelevant. Ignoring that hurtful criticism is merely going to do the beloved tool harm in the long run - no matter how much "<3" was put into it.
So, the first thing to recognize is that everybody has feelings. This seems like kind of an obvious and maybe a bit of a condescending thing to say, but the fact of the matter is that when you pour your life into something over 4 years, you're not going to come out of it with a "rational/logical" process—no matter what your ideal of programming is.
Is ignoring criticism a good thing? No, obviously not. But there's a wide gulf between constructive criticism and posts like the one being obliquely referenced here[0]. When an author makes only the most cursory effort to examine a language, and then pronounces it inferior to what they prefer with only very vague (and in many cases flat out incorrect) arguments, I think its safe to assume that they're not doing it out of the kindness of their heart.
When I look at code I wrote in the past I frequently think "what utter horse shit." I'm a better coder than I was 4 years a go and I will be a better coder in 4 years time. The extension of that means that, yes, the code I write today will be terrible by the standards of my future self. So yes, I am right now writing terrible code and it's fine. If someone takes the time to critique my code maybe it will be less terrible and in 4 years time I will be proud of it.
This doesn't mean you can't take pride in what you do.
> I think its safe to assume that they're not doing it out of the kindness of their heart.
Valuable criticism is not determined if it was done by the kindness of someone's heart. Your most valuable critique can often come from your worst enemy. You might have to read between the lines/vitriol but there is gold in there somewhere.
It's some guy's opinion about a programming language, not some hate-filled screed. There's no kindness or unkindness factor here. Certainly if you want to be unkind towards Rust people, be it the sharks or the remoras, writing an article in Russian isn't the way to go. There are plenty of reasons to say that Rust sucks and he hit a few of them.
I think you're completely missing the point. Graydon isn't talking about the receipt of constructive criticism. This is literally the first sentence:
"Each now and then someone on the internet decides to write a screed or rant in a comment section about how Rust is a terrible thing full of mistakes and stupidity, and they cannot wait for it to die soon enough."
He's also not talking about "ignoring" criticism, hurtful or otherwise. This entire post is his take on how to respond calmly to irrational antipathy.
Yeah, I did read the article. I only dedicated one line to the title. On recollection maybe he's attempting to click-bait the people who would agree with the title (and hence need to read the article).
Someone made the point yesterday, a good point I think, that the Go and Rust crowd would be better served by showing positive blogs and examples (i.e. Here is how to build a small app) rather than ones that serve only to whine and complain and bemoan C/C++.
You don't win friends by criticism.
As a seasoned C++ programmer, I am interested in Go and Rust, but not because a few ardent posters told me I have to.
> that the Go and Rust crowd would be better served by showing positive blogs and examples
Are we reading the same Hacker News? The community practically fellates itself over these two languages with any project/blog in the title containing Go or Rust shooting up to the front page.
If you simply search "Rust" on HN search, the first 4 pages all contain positive blogs and examples, with 200+ points and 100+ comments, and the first negative one on page 4 being "Author of “Unix in Rust” Abandons Rust in Favour of Nim"[1].
If you aren't seeing the "positive" stuff I'd have to say its because you don't want to see them. Even more strange you say that the Go crowd just whines and complains about C/C++ when the community has given up trying to be a replacement for C++ years ago and has embraced the "I need compiled Python" crowd.[2]
Each of these have been at the top of HN on the day of publication, they've been relatively hard to miss. None of them bemoan C++. In fact, they cite C++ as inspiration.
I refuse to consider it a test, thank you, because I'd end up failing it. I was genuinely curious when I asked the grandparent poster where he was seeing people whine about C++, because I just haven't seen them. And I'm a moderator of /r/rust, so I like to think that I see every Rust-related blog post that springs forth from the bowels of the internet.
In the course of researching this comment I ranked the top-rated posts on the subreddit over the past month, and not only did I not find any that were bashing C++, but the fourth-highest-rated post is actually a criticism of Rust by a Boost developer: https://plus.google.com/+nialldouglas/posts/AXFJRSM8u2t
So I ask again: who is going around unjustly denouncing C++ in Rust's name? I ask because I want to stop them!
> If the person is spewing anger, try to minimize the harm done by that anger by either asking them to stop or removing yourself and others from observing or participating in it.
The fact that this is thought of the original piece and that people need to be told not to get passionate about a tool is deeply worrying.
> Imagine Rust was a kid you were sending to preschool.
No it's not. It's a tool. The problem here is that people are attaching emotions to tools and code, as though they were their spouse or children. Emotions are an irrational/illogical process, programming is rational/logical - don't mix the two.
Rust is doing just fine, some criticism levied against it is healthy. The tone of the criticism is completely irrelevant. Ignoring that hurtful criticism is merely going to do the beloved tool harm in the long run - no matter how much "<3" was put into it.