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Embedded Rust in Production?

(blog.lohr.dev)
205 points michidk | 1 comments | 14 Oct 24 06:06 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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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meindnoch ◴[14 Oct 24 07:59 UTC] No.41835266[source]▶
>Only the author "knew" Rust [...] because the dev wanted to learn Rust

Many such cases. Recipe for disaster.

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rob74 ◴[14 Oct 24 08:14 UTC] No.41835352[source]▶
a.k.a. "resume-driven development"
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makeitdouble ◴[14 Oct 24 08:50 UTC] No.41835558[source]▶
Typically, devs polishing their resume instead of prioritising business metrics probably means the overall org is on the down slope.
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mytailorisrich ◴[14 Oct 24 09:00 UTC] No.41835636[source]▶
Perfectly normal for people to want to develop their skills and to enhance their value.

The thing is that this is not a developer's decision, this is a management decision. The developer might pitch for Rust or even start developing in Rust but if that is not right for the org then their manager should say 'no'.

So ultimately this is a red flag about management.

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1. makeitdouble ◴[15 Oct 24 01:44 UTC] No.41844111{3}[source]▶
I'd agree with ndndjdjdn in that management getting involved should be the last resort, and potentially only to veto a very bad decision.

I think the main issue here is having a single dev going for Rust. Ideally someone interested in a new technology would pitch it to the team, and they'd discuss if they want to have a shot a it and if they can justify the investment for the whole team. That's where a tech that doesn't fit would be discussed and rejected, potentially with a proposition for a better option that devs are also interested in.

Even if it starts with just a prototype, if it touches production the other members of the team should be able to review it and maintain if needed.

That's this whole bit missing, and the team looking at it as a thing of life, that makes me think they're not focused on pushing things forward anymore at an org level.