This creates a self-selection, where Rust lovers work on Rust projects and report utopian happy-go-lucky times. It's normal for most technologies.
Most of people work in other languages.
Did Google only interview these Rust-loving developers, and none of the people they're supposedly pushing Rust upon?
I'm just saying that Rust fans are currently self-selecting by choosing to work on Rust projects which skews the satisfaction numbers against other languages.
That doesn't have a lot to do with previous experience - with Rust being so new, __MOST__ developers, even fans, don't have much experience with it.
I do not understand how what you're saying here relates to this post, which does not seem to be saying the things that you are saying. I do not understand how to reconcile "we paid to train 1,000 people on the job and here's what they thought" and "only 13% of people had Rust experience before this" with "Rust fans are currently self-selecting by choosing to work on Rust projects."
Furthermore, at least in 2023, only ~25% of respondants are under 25. I'm not sure what counts as "younger" to you, but 37% are over 35, so it would seem that the survey skews older, not younger, to me anyway.
EDIT: since you're now flagged into oblivion (I tried to vouch for you but it didn't work), that statistic is what they changed "most loved" from. It counts people who have used Rust before, and want to continue using it.
As a parallel. A team using Scala at Amazon likely uses it because everyone (let's say 90%) was on board. It's just not something you force on your team unless there is existing interest.
Finally (an perhaps more importantly), the parent comment also mentioned older codebases. It does not seem likely anyone of those 1000 is currently doing maintenance so much as completely new projects/features. This tends to be work software developers enjoy more irrespective of language. So if you were pulled from maintenance in C++ to work on something new in Rust I'm pretty sure you'll say Rust is great just because you feel more productive.
Google hired Ferrous Systems to train employees, as well as writing their own training curriculum. That sounds to me like people who would not otherwise use Rust being asked to use it at their job, and their job investing in their skills because they wouldn't or hadn't done it on their own. Is that different than "forced to use it"?
> It does not seem likely anyone of those 1000 is currently doing maintenance so much as completely new projects/features.
Google has been using Rust in android since 2019. That's four years. That is of course not "legacy" in any large sense, but at what point for you is something legacy? Does none of that work over four years count as "maintenance"?
> So if you were pulled from maintenance in C++ to work on something new in Rust I'm pretty sure you'll say Rust is great just because you feel more productive.
The start of this sub-thread, and a lot of the discussion inside of it, implies that people are using Rust simply because they want to, and not because it provides actual advantages. Is your position here that the sole advantage of Rust over C++ is that since projects are newer, they're better to work on? And if so, is that advantage illegitimate?
> Is your position here that the sole advantage of Rust over C++ is that since projects are newer, they're better to work on? And if so, is that advantage illegitimate?
No, to rephrase, I think that maintenance work on average feels less productive and more grueling because you can spend 3 days debugging for a single line change. With a new project (or any new feature) you get to write your own thing which feels more productive.
I'm not saying people are less productive with Rust than C++. I am pointing out that there is a natural bias in the type of work that those two languages are being used for at Google and that this bias will impact self-assessed productivity.
> Does none of that work over four years count as "maintenance"?
Respectfully I think you are building a strawman because you (likely) work with Rust and enjoy it. Google is built on a staggering amount of 10-20 years old C++ codebases that have seen several runs of refactoring at this point and stand on the critical path of several of their most important products. Working on those is inherently slower and more meticulous than writing new Android features (even if 4 years old) in Rust.
Not necessarily, but it seems not unlikely.
> Is anyone who ever uses Rust a "Rust adopter" who is unable to give an unbiased opinion?
It’s still a relatively new and niche language, so, yes.
> Who would be able to give that opinion, in your view?
Nobody, and maybe that’s my real point, which is why I’d like some metrics to supplement the anecdotes. This especially applies to Rust, but I think also applies to any language.
Note that I don’t mean to imply that there isn’t value in anecdotes. There is.
To be honest, this is what I've taken away from this conversation so far: it doesn't seem like anything will satisfy your desires here.
> which is why I’d like some metrics to supplement the anecdotes
This conversation started with you not liking that the measure of quality is subjective, which is fine. How would you objectively measure code quality though? What metrics would you have preferred to see, other than the ones in this post?
I don’t have a problem with this Google poll. I think it is valuable.
What would satisfy my desires is exactly what I stated in my original comment: something more objective, like defect rates of Rust code bases compared to non-Rust ones. Metrics like these have their owns problems, but would be a nice supplement to the opinion-based poll.
Neither the objective metrics, nor the opinion poll can provide a complete picture, and neither is a substitute for the other. Both would be awesome.
> It’s still a relatively new and niche language, so, yes.
If nobody is able to give a non-partisan reply, I don't see how you could ever be satisfied.
> like defect rates of Rust code bases compared to non-Rust ones.
Cool, thanks. That does seem like one that is more objective, though there are confounding factors in that too, because sometimes defects lurk without being detected. This stuff is hard!
Google did put out something about this specifically on Rust (and others) use in Android, by the way, you might find that interesting: https://security.googleblog.com/2022/12/memory-safe-language...
> unbiased opinion
If the engineering manager after putting so much effort into switching to Rust, and trying to convince upper levels, putting their head at risk and after busting balls for months to make everyone learn Rust, comes into the office one day and asks if we love Rust, we the 77% that want to keep our jobs would answer "OF COURSE WE DO!!!!! COULDN'T BE HAPPIER!!!", with a big smile.
Me and all the other developers I know complain endlessly about the tools we're forced to use. We complain to anyone patient enough to listen, including all the engineering managers. No one I know ever got fired or laid off for this.