Informal discussion: comp.lang.rust?

[Dan Cross]

[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]

I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/). Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research. It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.

Thoughts?

- Dan C.

[Kaz Kylheku]

Post by Dan Cross
[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/).

Grownups interested in Rust should have a place for discussing it in
which "anything goes", and Usenet is the best forum in the world for
that.

Now, I strongly suspect that a Rust newsgroup will be ignored by pretty
much the entire current Rust demographic---but it doesn't matter.

Usenet has no security. People can use fake identies easily. The
authenticty of next to nothing can be ascertained. It's not a "safe"
environment. Anyone can say anything. You cannot enforce anything
resembling a code of conduct.

Core Rust development discussions (the sane people) are certainly not
going to move to Usenet, where they cannot enforce their rules.

Most of the remaining demographic clustered around Rust cannot wrap
their heads around that something like Usenet is even allowed to exist.
It mainly consists of paranoid, security-obsessed freaks who are running
from something, and includes a surprising number of social activists.

A Rust forum repugnant to them could foster alterantive narratives.
It would be a benefit to Rust, even if in all likelihood small.

[rek2 hispagatos]

Post by Dan Cross
[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/). Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research. It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.
Thoughts?
- Dan C.

I agree with this, but recently we created the comp.lang.go and we get
1-2 msg a month, currently there is an alt for rust, and we get the same
ammount of traffic, I know in the comp.lang.go we have more lurkers than
posters unfortunatelly, I made good word of it back 3 years a go, on go
matrix channels and mastodon etc, and I know people joined because they created
an account on our server, and I see them logging in daily, unfortunatelly I
switched a bit after that to do most of my coding o rust as well not go any more,
so I myself have not many topics to ask but is a win win because we got more peple
to use usenet on a daily basis I just think they are "Scared" we had
comments in our matrix chat rooms of some people getting shy to talk
because all the ultra right wing trolls in other newsgroups specially 1
linux advocate one comes to mind, but they do participate in the hispagatos.*
I try to asure them to just ignore the trolls and start participating on
the big-8 groups a well.. :shrugs: so In short I like the idea I will
post, specially now that all my code is in rust for myself and my
hacking/infosec work, if you make good word of it at least maybe we get
new fresh users and balance a bit the trolls :)
PS: I know a lot of people is not going to agree with this. Im aware.

Happy Hacking
ReK2

[rek2 hispagatos]

Post by Dan Cross
[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/). Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research. It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.
Thoughts?

Keith will tell you that it is off-topic here.

Topicality is part of the reason the Big-8 guidance for
introducing these discussions recommends cross-posting to groups
where the topic comes up semi-regularly, but setting follow ups
to news.groups.proposals, as I had done, and have done again
here. ;-)
- Dan C.

I replied to you on the other thread,
there is a alt.comp.lang.rust read my opinion on the main thread on the
big-8 newsgroup.
also you should forward to alt.2600, alt.2600.hackers, alt.2600.madrid,
hispagatos.talk and es.comp.hackers since we speak of rust all the time,
most of us moved from C/C++ to rust 2-4 years a go.

Happy Hacking
ReK2

[Dan Cross]

Post by rek2 hispagatos
I replied to you on the other thread,
there is a alt.comp.lang.rust read my opinion on the main thread on the
big-8 newsgroup.
also you should forward to alt.2600, alt.2600.hackers, alt.2600.madrid,
hispagatos.talk and es.comp.hackers since we speak of rust all the time,
most of us moved from C/C++ to rust 2-4 years a go.

For the Spanish-language groups, I wonder if you might help me
out with that? (Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I assume from
your message that you are a Spanish speaker.) It would be great
to get wider audience aware of the discussion, and while I
further assume most readers of those groups also read English,
as a courtesy it would be nice to say something in Spanish, but
I myself am not qualified to do so.

- Dan C.

[rek2 hispagatos]

Post by Dan Cross
your message that you are a Spanish speaker.) It would be great
to get wider audience aware of the discussion, and while I
further assume most readers of those groups also read English,
as a courtesy it would be nice to say something in Spanish, but
I myself am not qualified to do so.
- Dan C.

Sure I can share something, what exactly you want me to post? I can
translate it in a way that makes sense.

Happy Hacking
ReK2

[Dan Cross]

Post by rek2 hispagatos

Post by Dan Cross
your message that you are a Spanish speaker.) It would be great
to get wider audience aware of the discussion, and while I
further assume most readers of those groups also read English,
as a courtesy it would be nice to say something in Spanish, but
I myself am not qualified to do so.

Sure I can share something, what exactly you want me to post? I can
translate it in a way that makes sense.

Perhaps just the initial text I posted, and a note that
discussion is happening here (granted, in English)? For the
informal discussion, I think the important thing is that people
simply know that it's happening.

Thank you very much!

- Dan C.

[rek2 hispagatos]

Post by rek2 hispagatos

Post by Dan Cross
your message that you are a Spanish speaker.) It would be great
to get wider audience aware of the discussion, and while I
further assume most readers of those groups also read English,
as a courtesy it would be nice to say something in Spanish, but
I myself am not qualified to do so.
- Dan C.

Sure I can share something, what exactly you want me to post? I can
translate it in a way that makes sense.

ok I added a spanish announcement to hispagatos.talk alt.2600.madrid and
es.comp.hackers

Also posted it on mastodon/fediverse under the tags #newsgroup #usenet
#rust #rustlang
you can toot/retoot/bump read here:
https://hispagatos.space/@rek2/114161709899525162
there is a screenshot attached of my post to the Spanish groups.

I still have not posted it on the hacker groups alt.2600 alt.2600.* those are in
English do you want me to post there as well?

Happy Hacking
ReK2

[Dan Cross]

Post by rek2 hispagatos

Post by rek2 hispagatos

Post by Dan Cross
your message that you are a Spanish speaker.) It would be great
to get wider audience aware of the discussion, and while I
further assume most readers of those groups also read English,
as a courtesy it would be nice to say something in Spanish, but
I myself am not qualified to do so.
- Dan C.

Sure I can share something, what exactly you want me to post? I can
translate it in a way that makes sense.

ok I added a spanish announcement to hispagatos.talk alt.2600.madrid and
es.comp.hackers
Also posted it on mastodon/fediverse under the tags #newsgroup #usenet
#rust #rustlang
there is a screenshot attached of my post to the Spanish groups.

Thank you!

Post by rek2 hispagatos
I still have not posted it on the hacker groups alt.2600 alt.2600.* those are in
English do you want me to post there as well?

I certainly wouldn't mind! I'm not a regular in those groups.

Thanks again!

- Dan C.

[rek2 hispagatos]

Post by Dan Cross
[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/). Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research. It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.
Thoughts?
- Dan C.

the group I refer on my previes article is:
alt.comp.lang.rust


Happy Hacking
ReK2

[Richard Heathfield]

Post by Dan Cross
[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/). Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research. It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.
Thoughts?

It would certainly be an interesting exercise. Does the mechanism
for creating a big-8 group still work? Or does it even still exist?

[NewsGroups Are Dead]

Post by Dan Cross
[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/).  Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research.  It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.
Thoughts?

It would certainly be an interesting exercise. Does the mechanism for
creating a big-8 group still work? Or does it even still exist?

It does exist but junta is in charge so the level of bureaucracy must
be bypassed before anything can be done.

IMO newsgroups are dead; People with genuine questions are more likely
to use something called Google. Also YouTube is another place where
people are likely to find solutions to their programming questions.

[Richard Heathfield]

Post by NewsGroups Are Dead
IMO newsgroups are dead; People with genuine questions are more likely
to use something called Google.

Yeah, even now that's what I do when I'm stuck on X. And Google
shows me a question about Y on Stack Exchange, a /bit/ like the
one I'm asking, with lots of answers like "don't do Y, do Z
instead", and Z is nothing like what I need.

Google is shit, or hadn't you noticed?

[Richard Harnden]

Post by NewsGroups Are Dead
IMO newsgroups are dead; People with genuine questions are more likely
to use something called Google.

Yeah, even now that's what I do when I'm stuck on X. And Google shows me
a question about Y on Stack Exchange, a /bit/ like the one I'm asking,
with lots of answers like "don't do Y, do Z instead", and Z is nothing
like what I need.
Google is shit, or hadn't you noticed?

You can always ask ChatGPT ... that'll do all the googling for you and
then give you the wrong answer. But with confidence.

[rek2 hispagatos]

Post by Richard Harnden

Post by NewsGroups Are Dead
IMO newsgroups are dead; People with genuine questions are more likely
to use something called Google.

Yeah, even now that's what I do when I'm stuck on X. And Google shows me
a question about Y on Stack Exchange, a /bit/ like the one I'm asking,
with lots of answers like "don't do Y, do Z instead", and Z is nothing
like what I need.
Google is shit, or hadn't you noticed?

You can always ask ChatGPT ... that'll do all the googling for you and
then give you the wrong answer. But with confidence.

HAHAHAHA chatgpt and models in general they still shit for code, and if
you know your stuff you can tell right away when something is made from
it, maybe not as much with easy scripting languagess like python but
when you try rust,go,C/C++ chatgpt is shit.

BTW I do like a rust official big-8 group, I been doing rust for the
last 3 years and I like it so I will use it.

Happy Hacking
ReK2

[Tristan Miller]

Greetings.

Post by NewsGroups Are Dead
It does exist but junta is in charge so the level of bureaucracy must
be bypassed before anything can be done.

Was there ever a time where the Big 8 had no "junta"? Even in the 1980s
news sites would ignore control messages that didn't originate from the
backbone admins, and the backbone admins wouldn't issue control messages
to create groups unless a proponent demonstrated that a proper community
consultation and vote had taken place.

Regards,
Tristan

[Tristan Miller]

Greetings.

It would certainly be an interesting exercise. Does the mechanism for
creating a big-8 group still work? Or does it even still exist?

Yes, a couple new groups (comp.lang.go and comp.infosystems.gemini) have
been created in the past few years, so the process is still working.
Documentation on the group creation process is available at
<https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Category:Group_Creation>.

Regards,
Tristan

[Richard Heathfield]

Post by Tristan Miller
Greetings.

Post by Richard Heathfield
It would certainly be an interesting exercise. Does the
mechanism for creating a big-8 group still work? Or does it
even still exist?

Yes, a couple new groups (comp.lang.go and
comp.infosystems.gemini) have been created in the past few years,
so the process is still working. Documentation on the group
creation process is available at
<https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Category:Group_Creation>.

Yes, the last few days have been a revelation. When (many many
many years ago) alt.humor.best-of-usenet[1] rusted shut and could
not be revived, I assumed that the mechanisms were lost in the
mists. Because it is not owned or censored, Usenet is far too
important to be allowed to die through neglect, so I am delighted
to learn that my assumption was ill-founded.

[1] Yes, I know alt isn't in the Big 8.

[Marco Moock]

Post by Dan Cross
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/). Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research. It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.
Thoughts?

Are there people here (or in other groups) who want to discuss that
topic?
If so, I would think the group creation can take place.

[Dan Cross]

[Note: follows once again set to news.groups.proposals]

<snip>

Topicality is part of the reason the Big-8 guidance for
introducing these discussions recommends cross-posting to groups
where the topic comes up semi-regularly, but setting follow ups
to news.groups.proposals, as I had done, and have done again
here. ;-)

You will no doubt be aware that this discussion has already
fragmented over three groups (follow-ups are not everyone's cup
of tea). Presumably you will be following the discussion in all
of those groups?

I will attempt to do so, yes.

Perhaps people dislike Followup-To; to that, I say that it is
unfortunate that people do not want to follow what seems like a
reasonable and a well-defined process. See e.g.,
https://www.big-8.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_New_Big-8_Newsgroup,
specifically this text from the section titled, "Informal
Discussion":

|The proponent of the newsgroup ought to cross-post the idea to
|other, relevant newsgroups in addition to
|news.groups[.proposals]. In these crossposts, followups should
|be directed to news.groups[.proposals] so that discussion of
|the idea is confined to a single location. This makes it easier
|for interested parties to follow the entire discussion in one
|place, and for uninterested parties to avoid the discussion.

Clearly the initial cross-posting guidance from Big-8 is meant
to encourage letting potentially interested parties know that
the discussion is happening in news.groups.proposals as a
courtesy to those that do not regularly read news.groups.*, not
as a way to split the discussion $n$ different ways. In that
context, I can't think of a good reason to ignore the followup
header.

- Dan C.

[Keith Thompson]

Post by Dan Cross
Perhaps people dislike Followup-To; to that, I say that it is
unfortunate that people do not want to follow what seems like a
reasonable and a well-defined process. See e.g.,
https://www.big-8.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_New_Big-8_Newsgroup,
specifically this text from the section titled, "Informal

[...]

Be sure to delete the trailing comma from that URL. When I
copy-and-pasted it, I got a "There is currently no text in this
page." message (not a 404 error).

https://www.big-8.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_New_Big-8_Newsgroup

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by Dan Cross
[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/). Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research. It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.
Thoughts?
- Dan C.

There is a newsgroup for rust already, alt.comp.lang.rust, that is not
very active at all. The reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/ group
is fairly active comparatively.

Lynn

[Keith Thompson]

Post by Dan Cross
[Note: Followup-To: set to news.groups.proposals]
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust, for discussion of the Rust
programming language (https://rust-lang.org/). Rust is a
compiled, type- and memory- safe language that has been in open
development since 2010, and is rapidly gaining adoption in
industry and research. It often comes up in discussions related
to C and C++, but no existing group is dedicated to it.
Thoughts?

alt.comp.lang.rust already exists, and has low traffic (56 articles
since 2022). I see a post there from 2023-09-21, subject "Soon
comp.lang.rust", about an earlier attempt to create comp.lang.rust.
It looks like that effort didn't go anywhere.

I like the idea of a comp.lang.rust newsgroup, and I'll subscribe to
it if it's created. But I'm not convinced it would be successful,
and I won't have much to contribute myself.

Creating it would have been obvious back in Usenet's heyday.
Today -- well, it couldn't hurt.

[Beej Jorgensen]

Post by Dan Cross
I'd like to open informal discussion around possibly creating a
new newsgroup, comp.lang.rust

I'm all for it. Especially now that Google Groups has hit the road
(finally) and the spammers have largely packed up. And I like more
decentralized options.