5 ms·

>"Until we start seeing some more balanced (frankly, I'd settle for nuanced) discussion about the compromises made to get Rust's strengths, I'm staying the hell

>"Until we start seeing some more balanced (frankly, I'd settle for nuanced) discussion about the compromises made to get Rust's strengths, I'm staying the hell away from it." Look into the issues surrounding the borrow checker, that's one of Rust's main pain points. Long compilation times are another common issue. To Rust fans, I realise both of those issues will be addressed to some degree as MIR matures, but I'm looking for flaws as things stand now.

EugeneOZ 10y ago
Could you please tell more about borrow checker issues?
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  http://softwaremaniacs.org/blog/2016/02/12/ownership-borrowing-hard/en/ http://softwaremaniacs.org/blog/2016/02/12/ownership-borrowi...
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago
    Quote: "Rust's borrow checker is a wonderful thing that forces you into designing code to be more robust. But as it is so unlike anything you're used to, it takes time to develop a certain knack to work with it efficiently." I don't think it's description of an issue.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      >"I don't think it's description of an issue." It is if it drives potential community members away.
      - mmstick 10y ago
        No one's being driven away. Only people who had no intention on trying Rust are complaining about it.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
        There's plenty of comments about it in the Rust subreddit, coming from people who have tried it. Look, it's not an issue for all time, there are plans to improve it, I'm just suggesting it as a point of friction right now. If you seriously don't think it's an issue, what would you say are the issues? You won't do yourself any favours if you try to pretend Rust is perfect.
        EugeneOZ 10y ago
        Borrow checker learning curve is an issue, of course. But not checker itself.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
        You do realise you've wasted both my time and your own. If you thought about it from the start, it's obvious that I was referring to the learning curve. All facets of all Turing-complete languages are useful once you've overcome the learning curve. What varies is the length of time needed before you become proficient in using it. For another example... The learning curve for manual memory management in C is a major issue, but not the principal of manual memory management itself.
        EugeneOZ 10y ago
        No, I think I made important distinction. There can be issue with technology and there can be issue with learning curve.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
        The article I shared with you previously was about the learning curve.
        mmstick 10y ago
        I've been writing software exclusively in Rust since the 1.0 release. I have no issues with the borrow checker, personally. I haven't seen the borrow checker mentioned as an issue on the Rust subreddit, which I frequent. The only people who have issues are people who've used Rust for less than a week and still do not understand the basic rules of the borrow checker. I've explained it many times to people already. Once you know the rules, it's easy peasy, and you'll never have another complaint from the borrow checker ever again. The only improvements that I could see for Rust is landing non-lexical borrows, macros 2.0, and faster compile times, albeit compile times are largely fixed now. A 100K combined LoC project can easily compile a release build using 1 core in 3 minutes or less.
- azdle 10y ago
  I assume they're talking about the fact that basically everyone that learns Rust goes through a period of "fighting the borrow checker". Part of the way that rust ensures memory safety is by preventing you from doing things that it can't prove are safe to do. For people coming from languages like C or C++ they've been able to get away with doing things that are probably unsafe but that work either through luck or very careful planning. But since the borrow checker can't prove that some of these tricks are safe it will just say "no" and fail to compile. Within a couple weeks you will get the hang of what the borrow checker can actually handle and you'll mostly not have problems except when you are actually making a genuine mistake.
  - allengeorge 10y ago
    Honestly, I found dealing with generics worse than the borrow checker. Since the compiler wants everything to be sized, code that I think should work (i.e. using generics and traits) will sometimes just not compile. In fact - I'm dead in the water facing an issue like that right now. That is, by far, the most frustrating thing in using Rust.
    - steveklabnik 10y ago
      Have you asked for help on one of the various forums? If something is leaving you dead in the water, I'd like to help you fix that.
    - EugeneOZ 10y ago
      Just ask for help in IRC or your local Rust community and you'll get help. If you want - post here link to gist.github and I'll try to help.
    - burntsushi 10y ago
      Can you describe the issue? Perhaps someone can help. I don't know if it helps you or not, but you can specify that a type parameter need not be sized with the ?Sized bound. e.g., The `Path::new` constructor is defined as `fn new<S: AsRef<OsStr> + ?Sized>(s: &S) -> &Path`. This means `S` can, for example, be `str`, which is an unsized type.
jay_kyburz 10y ago
Another couple of flaws that could have a big impact on Rust. - It will be super hard to hire for Rust for a long time. It would be a very bold move to write your app in Rust if you plan to grow your tech team anytime soon. - I havn't tried learning Rust myself, but I have read that little that it can be a little tricky to start thinking the rust way (borrowing?) Plus the language "looks" hardcore. I wonder if that will put off new devs.
- quotemstr 10y ago
  > super hard to hire for Rust for a long time Good programmers aren't strongly bound to language. Hire any systems programmer and have that person learn Rust.
  - jay_kyburz 10y ago
    Very true, also it's not really a weakness for Rust, but any new language / tools.
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  There have comments on HN to the effect that, paradoxically, it's easy to find Haskell developers to hire, because there are so many jobs that require working with more mainstream languages. I would hope the same principle applies to Rust.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    You might even hire some of us Haskell programmers.

EugeneOZ 10y ago

Could you please tell more about borrow checker issues?

ZenoArrow 10y ago
http://softwaremaniacs.org/blog/2016/02/12/ownership-borrowing-hard/en/ http://softwaremaniacs.org/blog/2016/02/12/ownership-borrowi...
- EugeneOZ 10y ago
  Quote: "Rust's borrow checker is a wonderful thing that forces you into designing code to be more robust. But as it is so unlike anything you're used to, it takes time to develop a certain knack to work with it efficiently." I don't think it's description of an issue.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    >"I don't think it's description of an issue." It is if it drives potential community members away.
    - mmstick 10y ago
      No one's being driven away. Only people who had no intention on trying Rust are complaining about it.
      - ZenoArrow 10y ago
        There's plenty of comments about it in the Rust subreddit, coming from people who have tried it. Look, it's not an issue for all time, there are plans to improve it, I'm just suggesting it as a point of friction right now. If you seriously don't think it's an issue, what would you say are the issues? You won't do yourself any favours if you try to pretend Rust is perfect.
        EugeneOZ 10y ago
        Borrow checker learning curve is an issue, of course. But not checker itself.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
        You do realise you've wasted both my time and your own. If you thought about it from the start, it's obvious that I was referring to the learning curve. All facets of all Turing-complete languages are useful once you've overcome the learning curve. What varies is the length of time needed before you become proficient in using it. For another example... The learning curve for manual memory management in C is a major issue, but not the principal of manual memory management itself.
        EugeneOZ 10y ago
        No, I think I made important distinction. There can be issue with technology and there can be issue with learning curve.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
        The article I shared with you previously was about the learning curve.
        mmstick 10y ago
        I've been writing software exclusively in Rust since the 1.0 release. I have no issues with the borrow checker, personally. I haven't seen the borrow checker mentioned as an issue on the Rust subreddit, which I frequent. The only people who have issues are people who've used Rust for less than a week and still do not understand the basic rules of the borrow checker. I've explained it many times to people already. Once you know the rules, it's easy peasy, and you'll never have another complaint from the borrow checker ever again. The only improvements that I could see for Rust is landing non-lexical borrows, macros 2.0, and faster compile times, albeit compile times are largely fixed now. A 100K combined LoC project can easily compile a release build using 1 core in 3 minutes or less.
azdle 10y ago
I assume they're talking about the fact that basically everyone that learns Rust goes through a period of "fighting the borrow checker". Part of the way that rust ensures memory safety is by preventing you from doing things that it can't prove are safe to do. For people coming from languages like C or C++ they've been able to get away with doing things that are probably unsafe but that work either through luck or very careful planning. But since the borrow checker can't prove that some of these tricks are safe it will just say "no" and fail to compile. Within a couple weeks you will get the hang of what the borrow checker can actually handle and you'll mostly not have problems except when you are actually making a genuine mistake.
- allengeorge 10y ago
  Honestly, I found dealing with generics worse than the borrow checker. Since the compiler wants everything to be sized, code that I think should work (i.e. using generics and traits) will sometimes just not compile. In fact - I'm dead in the water facing an issue like that right now. That is, by far, the most frustrating thing in using Rust.
  - steveklabnik 10y ago
    Have you asked for help on one of the various forums? If something is leaving you dead in the water, I'd like to help you fix that.
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago
    Just ask for help in IRC or your local Rust community and you'll get help. If you want - post here link to gist.github and I'll try to help.
  - burntsushi 10y ago
    Can you describe the issue? Perhaps someone can help. I don't know if it helps you or not, but you can specify that a type parameter need not be sized with the ?Sized bound. e.g., The `Path::new` constructor is defined as `fn new<S: AsRef<OsStr> + ?Sized>(s: &S) -> &Path`. This means `S` can, for example, be `str`, which is an unsized type.

jay_kyburz 10y ago

Another couple of flaws that could have a big impact on Rust. - It will be super hard to hire for Rust for a long time. It would be a very bold move to write your app in Rust if you plan to grow your tech team anytime soon. - I havn't tried learning Rust myself, but I have read that little that it can be a little tricky to start thinking the rust way (borrowing?) Plus the language "looks" hardcore. I wonder if that will put off new devs.

quotemstr 10y ago
> super hard to hire for Rust for a long time Good programmers aren't strongly bound to language. Hire any systems programmer and have that person learn Rust.
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  Very true, also it's not really a weakness for Rust, but any new language / tools.
lobster_johnson 10y ago
There have comments on HN to the effect that, paradoxically, it's easy to find Haskell developers to hire, because there are so many jobs that require working with more mainstream languages. I would hope the same principle applies to Rust.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  You might even hire some of us Haskell programmers.