In 2018 Bryan Cantrill gave a brilliant talk where he shared his recent experiences with the Rust programming language. More profoundly, he explored a facet of software that is oftentimes overlooked: the values of the software we use. To paraphrase him slightly:
Values are defined as expressions of relative importance. Two things that we’re comparing could both be good attributes. The real question is, when you have to make a choice between two of them, what do you choose? That choice that you make, reflects your core values.
He goes ahead to contrast the core values of some programming languages with the core values we demand from systems software, like operating system kernels, file systems, microprocessors, and so on. It is a really good talk and you should watch it.
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