this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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Fediverse
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A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).
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The Lemmy algorithm:
https://join-lemmy.org/docs/contributors/07-ranking-algo.html
The instances communicate between each other using special bots in the background that transport info between instances. Dot world is too big and makes too many requests to other instances. Most instances are reducing the number of transport bots back to dot world right now. There is supposed to be a fix in the next Lemmy version, but the code base is somewhat slow moving due to only two devs and it is written in Rust. Rust is a hard language like C, and not too many here are able to contribute to it, even though it is like the new gold standard of code.
So you might see a delay between posting and replies or the interaction may come in bursts that correspond with the transport bots carrying content between instances as the host admin have configured their instance.
I’m actually mildly surprised it’s still only two devs. Are they treating it like a walled garden, or is there really a complete lack of interest in contributing to the codebase?
Rust is a niche language
It's like starting a book club in Esperanto compared to English. Sure, Esperanto is supposedly a better language, but very few people know about it
Rust is not a niche language. It’s a strict and strongly opinionated language by design. People with background in strongly typed languages, who additionally use opinionated linters and formatters have an easier time adjusting. JavaScript “devs” (note: distinct from “software engineers”) probably pull their hair out over a lot of stuff in because in my experience, many js devs know enough about the language to work proficiently in a couple of frameworks, but haven’t really dug into the nuances of the language, and also have limited experience with strong typing.
So it's a nice language.
Very nice even :D
My main argument about Rust being a niche language is how few contributors there are to the Lemmy codebase.
Mbin (PHP) has more spread across its contributors:
But maybe Rust isn't that niche, but the Fediverse apps and projects are niche themselves.
The Lemmy frontend is written in Typescript which is a very popular language, yet it has even less contributors than the backend.
Lemmy is niche even within the fediverse, where microblogging still dominates and the threadiverse style apps are smaller. It's just not a very large space.
I guess Reddit and similar link aggregators are just much smaller than we all think they are.
Even reddit is still niche when it comes to social media and has always been. It's become a little more mainstream the last few years, but for most people social media still equals Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and such.