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Having not written much Rust yet, I agree from the outside. I still use C and C++ in my daily job. I tried D, which wanted to be a "better C++", but the proble

Having not written much Rust yet, I agree from the outside. I still use C and C++ in my daily job. I tried D, which wanted to be a "better C++", but the problem was it didn't really add anything new -- it tidied up various rough edges, but didn't offer enough benefits to be worth the switch. I never took other candidates, like Go, seriously. While there are programs written in C and C++ which probably should be written in something like Go, it wasn't a serious replacement for places where C/C++ really excel. Rust seems to provide real benefits. Also (and importantly for external people like me), is being used to write real software I'm using. Firefox (obviously), and also 'rust-parallel', and 'ripgrep', which have just slotted into my daily life and work cleanly, fast and well.

sametmax 10y ago
Oh, ripgrep seems nice.
jmcomets 10y ago
I apologize for the language, but holy shit ripgrep looks fucking amazing.
Manishearth 10y ago
IMO D is exactly that, "a better C++", and does not try to be anything more. Rust, on the other hand, is more of a "this is a tool that should address all your C++ needs" (which means it won't be better than C++ in all aspects), and it does try to be something more. D seems to be designed to be a language that has the exact same powers (or better) as C++, but tidied up. C++ has over time grown to be a very powerful language but these powers are all bolt-on and don't interact well together. D is a language designed from the perspective of "Okay, we have all these C++ features being used in these ways, let's build a more holistically-designed language that has the same features, and correct all the mistakes along the way". I think it's good to have language refreshes like this. You get a chance to fix all the warts and make improvements without breaking backcompat. It's very useful alternative to C++ when you need something that behaves very much like C++. Plus, it has `extern (C++)`, which makes it super easy to incrementally drop in to C++ code. Ultimately, Rust is pretty different. It doesn't have template metaprogramming. It doesn't have inheritance. While most of the problems solved by these tools can be solved in other ways in Rust, it doesn't change the fact that Rust introduces more paradigm shifts. Of course, safety is a benefit that pretty much overshadows this, but there is something to be said for languages like D which are "better C++"s without changing the paradigms involved.

sametmax 10y ago

Oh, ripgrep seems nice.

jmcomets 10y ago

I apologize for the language, but holy shit ripgrep looks fucking amazing.

Manishearth 10y ago

IMO D is exactly that, "a better C++", and does not try to be anything more. Rust, on the other hand, is more of a "this is a tool that should address all your C++ needs" (which means it won't be better than C++ in all aspects), and it does try to be something more. D seems to be designed to be a language that has the exact same powers (or better) as C++, but tidied up. C++ has over time grown to be a very powerful language but these powers are all bolt-on and don't interact well together. D is a language designed from the perspective of "Okay, we have all these C++ features being used in these ways, let's build a more holistically-designed language that has the same features, and correct all the mistakes along the way". I think it's good to have language refreshes like this. You get a chance to fix all the warts and make improvements without breaking backcompat. It's very useful alternative to C++ when you need something that behaves very much like C++. Plus, it has `extern (C++)`, which makes it super easy to incrementally drop in to C++ code. Ultimately, Rust is pretty different. It doesn't have template metaprogramming. It doesn't have inheritance. While most of the problems solved by these tools can be solved in other ways in Rust, it doesn't change the fact that Rust introduces more paradigm shifts. Of course, safety is a benefit that pretty much overshadows this, but there is something to be said for languages like D which are "better C++"s without changing the paradigms involved.