Redditors, how do you like Lemmy?

Chris Trottier@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 238 points –

I run a few groups, like @fediversenews@venera.social, mostly on Friendica. It's okay, but Friendica resembles Facebook Groups more than Reddit. I also like the moderation options that Lemmy has.

Currently, I'm testing jerboa, which is an Android client for Lemmy. It's in alpha, has a few hiccups, but it's coming along nicely.

Personally, I hope the #RedditMigration spurs adoption of more Fediverse server software. And I hope Mastodon users continue to interact with Lemmy and Kbin.

All that said, as a mod of a Reddit community (r/Sizz) I somewhat regret giving Reddit all that content. They have nerve charging so much for API access!

Hopefully, we can build a better version of social media that focuses on protocols, not platforms.

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It's looking great! I joined just 2 days ago and the communities I subscribed to are already looking much more lively today. Thanks, Reddit blackout!

Also written in Rust, btw :)

How do you know something is developed with Rust?

Don't worry, the devs will tell you.

I've also found this to be true with Julia devs

Source: am Julia dev

Weirdly enough the fact that it’s written in rust is why I am using it instead of kbin (PHP)

PHP!? They're writing the shiny new thing in the joke language from r/ProgrammerHumor?

What makes rust so special?

God damn! Okay now I'm fully behind it

Fast because it's pointer-based like C/C++, but better because it's memory safe, which means it won't crash, leak or mysteriously overwrite it's own data constantly.

I'd say that it's fast because it's compiled to machine code and doesn't use garbage collection. But I see what you mean with "pointer-based".

Rust is a very good language but is relatively new on the scene so it has to compete against other languages that fit the same niche(primarily C++) that have been around a lot longer.

Rust has been very popular for hobby projects for a while but it's still pretty rare to see it for larger projects, and you still almost never see it for enterprise projects. So it's cool seeing an app that uses it blow up.

It should be noted that while Rust is rarely used, some very big players are pushing it. E.g. last year Microsoft Azure's CEO tweeted that "it's time to halt starting any new projects in C/C++ and use Rust for those scenarios where a non-GC language is required", Windows contains some Rust code now and the Linux kernel also supports Rust in addition to C since December.

I've written a bit less than half a million lines of Rust now and worked mainly with it in the last three companies in the past seven years. It works really well for large projects with many contributors.