There really aren't that many people working on the compiler. It's mostly volunteers.

The structure is unlike a traditional company. In a traditional company, the managers decide the priorities and direct the employees what to work on while facilitating that work. While there are people with a more managerial type position working on rust compiler, their job is not to tell the volunteers what to work on (they cannot), but instead to help the volunteers accomplish whatever it is they want to do.

I don't know about std::simd specifically, but for many features, it's simply a case of "none of the very small number of people working on the rust compiler have prioritized it".

I do wish there was a bounty system, where people could say "I really want std::simd so I'll pay $5,000 to the rust foundation if it gets stabilized". If enough people did that I'm sure they could find a way to make it happen. But I think realistically, very few people would be willing to put up even a cent for the features they want. I hear a lot of people wishing for better const generics, but only 27 people have set up a donation to boxy (lead of the const generics group https://github.com/sponsors/BoxyUwU ).

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LtWorf 10 hours ago | parent [-]

> There really aren't that many people working on the compiler. It's mostly volunteers.

Seems smart to put the language as a requirement for compiling the linux kernel and a bunch of other core projects then!

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ChadNauseam 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think it seems just right. Languages these days are either controlled by volunteers or megacorps. Because linux is about freedom and is not aligned with megacorps, I think they'd prefer a volunteer-driven language like Rust or C++ rather than the corporate ones.

	▲	pjmlp 24 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		C++ has been an industrial language from the early days, since it got adopted among C compiler vendors back in the 1980's.
	▲	FuckButtons 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I’m not sure you can argue that Rust and C++ have anything like a similar story around being volunteer oriented, given the number of places that have C++ compiler groups that contribute papers / implementations.
	▲	immibis 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm not sure you can claim that Linux is about freedom. Linux is run by a bunch of corps and megacorps who are otherwise competing, not by volunteers.

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lmm 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, Linux development works exactly the same way.

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pclmulqdq 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Linux has a BDFL and a quasi-corporate structure that keeps all the incentives aligned. Rust has neither of those.

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LtWorf 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think it's quite rare for linux developers to not do it on behalf of some company.

Weren't a bunch of modules deprecated recently as a consequence of intel layoffs?

	▲	lmm 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I think it's quite rare for linux developers to not do it on behalf of some company. Corporate-sponsored contributions are probably the majority, but I don't think true volunteers are super-rare. But in both cases they're a "volunteer" from the perspective of the Linux leadership - they're contributing the changes that they want to make, they're not employees of Linux who can be directed to work on the things that that leadership thinks is important. (And conversely it's the same with Rust - a lot of those volunteer contributors work for employers who want Rust to have some specific functionality, so they employ someone to work on that)