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Seems odd to compare Rust and Python. They're different levels of abstraction and I think are both great languages that serve different use cases. I'm always

Seems odd to compare Rust and Python. They're different levels of abstraction and I think are both great languages that serve different use cases. I'm always going to be more productive in Python. And Python has an awesome ecosystem for web apps. Rust gives you native compiled binaries, concurrency, and speed in general. Why you'd consider these two languages for the same app is beyond me.

dikaiosune 10y ago
There are definitely areas where rust and python are closer in abstraction level than you might initially think. For example, rust's iterator trait enables things which are remarkably powerful when compared against python comprehensions. Another example is the rayon library which is incredibly succinct compared to the multiprocess module in python.
mahyarm 10y ago
I really wish python had a good concurrency story, it would last far longer as a language if it did. The GIL is why it's reducing in popularity.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  > The GIL is why it's reducing in popularity. Unlikely. Python, Ruby, PHP, Javascript all do not have in-process parallelism. In contrast, C/C++, Java/Scala/Clojure, Go, and Rust all have in-process parallelism. This just furthers seabrookmx's point that Python and Rust belong to two different classes of useful languages. --- P.S. Python's multiprocessing module is an order of magnitude better/easier than anything in the other scripting languages I listed.
  - seabrookmx 10y ago
    Agreed. People always mention the GIL like it's the achilles heel of Python, yet when discussing NodeJS the single threaded nature is almost described as a feature. Anyone reading hackernews knows that Node doesn't have an issue with popularity (and AFAIK Python doesn't either).
vitiral 10y ago
I agree and disagree. They are very different, but rust can do pretty much anything that python can do -- but do it better. The only time I would be more productive in python is if the app is very small (like a script). Any bigger than that and rust is the right hammer for my nails. Probably just personal preference, but I strongly prefer the type safety and performance guarantees of rust.

dikaiosune 10y ago

There are definitely areas where rust and python are closer in abstraction level than you might initially think. For example, rust's iterator trait enables things which are remarkably powerful when compared against python comprehensions. Another example is the rayon library which is incredibly succinct compared to the multiprocess module in python.

mahyarm 10y ago

I really wish python had a good concurrency story, it would last far longer as a language if it did. The GIL is why it's reducing in popularity.

paulddraper 10y ago
> The GIL is why it's reducing in popularity. Unlikely. Python, Ruby, PHP, Javascript all do not have in-process parallelism. In contrast, C/C++, Java/Scala/Clojure, Go, and Rust all have in-process parallelism. This just furthers seabrookmx's point that Python and Rust belong to two different classes of useful languages. --- P.S. Python's multiprocessing module is an order of magnitude better/easier than anything in the other scripting languages I listed.
- seabrookmx 10y ago
  Agreed. People always mention the GIL like it's the achilles heel of Python, yet when discussing NodeJS the single threaded nature is almost described as a feature. Anyone reading hackernews knows that Node doesn't have an issue with popularity (and AFAIK Python doesn't either).

vitiral 10y ago

I agree and disagree. They are very different, but rust can do pretty much anything that python can do -- but do it better. The only time I would be more productive in python is if the app is very small (like a script). Any bigger than that and rust is the right hammer for my nails. Probably just personal preference, but I strongly prefer the type safety and performance guarantees of rust.