Friends of Rust

[Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 1 May 2016 at 16:26:55 UTC, Seb wrote:
> On Sunday, 1 May 2016 at 15:58:54 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
>> On Sunday, 1 May 2016 at 10:37:26 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
>>> On Sun, 2016-05-01 at 09:18 +0000, Laeeth Isharc via 
>>> Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>>> https://www.rust-lang.org/friends.html
>>>> 
>>>> Time for us to do a bit better than just a wiki page ?
>>>
>>> That webpage really is fairly dreadful when using a dark 
>>> theme.
>>>
>>> Also I'd only heard of two of the organizations.
>>
>> And yet if you are somebody in an enterprise  with decision 
>> making authority and therefore with too much to do and using 
>> heuristic thinking a bit too much,  which page makes the 
>> better impression?
>
> @Laeeth: This is the _most often_ asked question by friends - 
> aka "Who is using it?"
> = is it one of those trendy, nerdy theory projects - or is 
> actually trustworthy.

Yes, exactly.  Cialdini's "Influence" social proof principle.  
It's not only a question of narrow rationality, but also because 
people in organizations tend to rely on heuristics for 
decision-making.  So it's a no-brainer to tell people who is 
using it, and I wouldn't worry about filtering it - we should 
just organize by sector perhaps, and flesh out the information 
about the companies so it's more than just a single line.

> So yes not only enterprises, but also "normal" people don't 
> want to develop code in a language that is untrustworthy (=no 
> huge userbase/backer), because they have the fear that it might 
> not be compile-able  in the future (=language death).

Yes - so we should be honest, but not hide our light under a 
bushel, as we do currently.  That part is one that should be 
shiniest, because it's key to make a good impression, and a wiki 
page doesn't really cut the mustard if someone isn't already 
determined to try D.

> Another aspect that's probably also an important factor, don't 
> worry I don't think like this, but I know friends who do: "why 
> should I learn a language if it's not used in production and 
> thus I can't get a job with it?"

Well, it won't be possible at this stage to persuade everyone, 
and one shouldn't expect to succeed.  But we could do a better 
job appealing to those who already want to try D but haven't yet 
taken the first step.

> -> I think it's a great idea, too. We should get such a site 
> too!
> So which companies could be "friends of D"?
> Just throwing in some names I heard in the last couple of weeks:
> Sociomantic? Ebay? Facebook? Weka?
>
> So if you are using D in your company, please shout!

The wiki page is a good start.  Maybe some kind of official 
sponsorship category makes sense (that's a matter for the 
Foundation or Walter+Andrei), but one should at least show that 
there are sensible companies not prone to using technologies out 
of mere idle intellectual curiosity that are doing real work with 
D.