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You know what's the saddest thing as a language engineer? When excited users proselytize the project so much that other potential users get resentful and preemptively reject it _out of annoyance_. I see this happening a lot and it produces FEELINGS.
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hey, if you are in the Rust community and you think it's funny to talk about/act out the "Rust Evangelism Strike Force", can u please... not? being pushy evangelists that are rude and insist it's all a joke are a huge pain in the ass. no one likes this. it's a bad look.
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Do you have any ideas on how we might combat this bug early on in a language's life cycle? Maybe this is the next frontier new language communities can attempt to tackle, beyond just fostering friendly, supportive communities internally. 🤔
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Dunno. I’d hesitate to suggest anything short of inclusive universalism, as it could so easily mutate into distasteful systems-programming elitism and gatekeeping that’s even worse. Maybe just be excessively honest about its actual shortcomings? It has plenty of problems!
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(also I quietly wish we didn’t use the term evangelism in this context at all — carries a very specific religious cultural heritage, a sour note to those who had negative experiences with churches)
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Yes, very much agree with this. Our field is full of subjectivity, but that doesn’t mean we necessarily need to resort to religious-styles of marketing in lieu of that. Just accept that we don’t know some things and be honest about it.
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