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To get any programming done, you have to learn certain things, you can't complain that it takes weeks to learn a new programming language and months to assimila

by omouse 10y ago

To get any programming done, you have to learn certain things, you can't complain that it takes weeks to learn a new programming language and months to assimilate it's model of thinking. But saying "you need to spend a few months to get intimately acquainted with the language" is just not going to work in practice if you're hoping about breaking in to the mainstream. You mean it's okay for everyone to struggle to work with JavaScript for years and years trying to come up with an OO system and a module system and trying to just bundle the files for the browser, but it's not okay to spend months on getting intimately acquainted with the language? Who cares if Rust becomes mainstream, we only need the best open source code to use it (like Firefox and the other C/C++ libs that are thinking of porting over). We don't need it to be mainstream, we just need it to be possible to learn it within a reasonable timeframe (less than a year).

Bartweiss 10y ago
> You mean it's okay for everyone to struggle to work with JavaScript for years and years trying to come up with an OO system and a module system and trying to just bundle the files for the browser, but it's not okay to spend months on getting intimately acquainted with the language? You're saying that like those things are a contrast, not two incarnations of the same issue. Safe-and-usable is the holy grail for exactly this reason - right now we have usable-but-unsafe. Javascript isn't a few months to get acquainted: it's a few days to get passable results and a lifetime to get good ones. So there's a huge need for a better mainstream tool, because the alternative is letting the existing ones endure. That doesn't have to be Rust - there's plenty of space for languages that are hard, but good for key applications like safe browsers. But it has to be something - lecturing people doesn't actually reduce reliance on easy-to-learn, hard-to-secure options.

by omouse 10y ago

Bartweiss 10y ago

> You mean it's okay for everyone to struggle to work with JavaScript for years and years trying to come up with an OO system and a module system and trying to just bundle the files for the browser, but it's not okay to spend months on getting intimately acquainted with the language? You're saying that like those things are a contrast, not two incarnations of the same issue. Safe-and-usable is the holy grail for exactly this reason - right now we have usable-but-unsafe. Javascript isn't a few months to get acquainted: it's a few days to get passable results and a lifetime to get good ones. So there's a huge need for a better mainstream tool, because the alternative is letting the existing ones endure. That doesn't have to be Rust - there's plenty of space for languages that are hard, but good for key applications like safe browsers. But it has to be something - lecturing people doesn't actually reduce reliance on easy-to-learn, hard-to-secure options.