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Embedded Rust in Production?

(blog.lohr.dev)
205 points michidk | 9 comments | 14 Oct 24 06:06 UTC | HN request time: 1.243s | source | bottom
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dazzawazza ◴[14 Oct 24 07:56 UTC] No.41835253[source]▶
Access to competant Rust developers can be a challenge even for large companies.

I recently finished a contract at a (very large game dev) company where some tools were written in Rust. The tools were a re-write of python scripts and added no new functionality but were slightly faster in Rust.

The reality was that these tools were unmaintainable by the rest of the company. Only the author "knew" Rust and it was hard to justify a new hire Rust developer to maintain this small set of tools.

The only reason these tools were written in Rust was because the dev wanted to learn Rust (a big but common mistake). I pointed out to the Technical Director that this was a big mistake and the teams had taken on a large amount of technical debt for no reason other than the ego of the wanna-be-rust-developer. Since I "knew" Rust he wanted me to maintain it. My advice was to go back to the Python scripts and I left.

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1. mellosouls ◴[14 Oct 24 12:07 UTC] No.41836742[source]▶
The only reason these tools were written in Rust was because the dev wanted to learn Rust (a big but common mistake).

While they should get wider buy-in first then if the choice is technically justified within reason, its perfectly appropriate (and normal) for devs to pick up new languages in this way when existing expertise is not available on staff. No competent dev will accept their skills atrophying due to overly rigid political/tech choices.

That's how skills are built, its always been thus in such environments, and thats ok.

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2. hu3 ◴[14 Oct 24 13:03 UTC] No.41837132[source]▶
Sorry but employees are not entitled to get paid to learn whatever technology they want during work.

And I say that as an employee.

There's some flexibility to choose tooling but with autonomy comes responsibility.

Replacing a bunch of working Python scripts with Rust is not just irresponsible, it's disrespectful and isolating towards coworkers.

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3. mellosouls ◴[14 Oct 24 13:07 UTC] No.41837159[source]▶
Sorry but employees are not entitled to get paid to learn whatever technology they want during work, in their own special ivory towers.

rather different to my

While they should get wider buy-in first then if the choice is technically justified within reason, its perfectly appropriate

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4. hu3 ◴[14 Oct 24 13:11 UTC] No.41837199{3}[source]▶
My point is about this:

> No competent dev will accept their skills atrophying due to overly rigid political/tech choices.

Competent dev to me is one that delivers value. I say that as a dev but I'm pretty sure stakeholders would agree.

It's perfectly reasonable to hone your skills outside of paying hours if you chose to expand to new technology outside of your employer's stack.

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5. mellosouls ◴[14 Oct 24 13:31 UTC] No.41837375{4}[source]▶
Fairer, but that's probably the point and tone you should have quoted with then. ;)

I would probably concede that it depends on context - for devs paid at the top of the market to simply churn stuff out factory-style there is less justification for self-improvement on work time.

For the majority though there is always give and take between responsible employees and employers, and building skills as discussed is normal.

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6. ◴[14 Oct 24 13:44 UTC] No.41837457{5}[source]▶
7. whatshisface ◴[14 Oct 24 13:49 UTC] No.41837508{5}[source]▶
You're not likely to be paid top of the market at a firm whose biggest concern is that you might be more flexible and a faster learner than anyone else they were able to hire.
8. ◴[14 Oct 24 13:55 UTC] No.41837578[source]▶
9. givemeethekeys ◴[14 Oct 24 20:49 UTC] No.41841832[source]▶
No one has the "right", as you put it. The learning of and using Rust was approved by the employee's superiors.

If anything, companies expecting employees to know their specific tech stack on day 1 of the job is much less common an expectation outside of Software engineering.