4 ms·
I can't tell if this is an April Fool's joke or not. If it is, congratulations, troll successful. But I'm going to go ahead and reply anyway... There are exact
by bascule 10y ago
I can't tell if this is an April Fool's joke or not. If it is, congratulations, troll successful. But I'm going to go ahead and reply anyway...
There are exactly two valid* points in this post:
- rustc is slow
- "the circlejerk"
* i.e. not completely without merit
I'll just go through these really quick:
1. rustc is slow
Rust just shipped (in beta) incremental compilation, a technique commonly used by compilers to speed up recompiles:
https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/incremental-compilation-beta/4721 https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/incremental-compilation-be...
This doesn't change the fact rustc is slow, but it certainly makes the developer experience much better. Try it out!
That said, rustc is still slow. A valid complaint.
2. rust needs unions
Rust has two types of unions:
- tagged unions a.k.a. sum types. These are preferred
- #[feature(untagged_unions)]: actual C-style unions, unsafe, useful for C interop
You probably want the first kind. Rust does have them!
3. linked lists are great
Linked lists are great! I use them in one of the main Rust programs I'm working on. The thing about Rust linked lists is how you write one will depend entirely on your memory model.
One of the best tutorials on Rust explains the language's memory model in terms of linked lists. It's a great read, a harrowing tale of "fighting rustc" until you achieve victory:
http://cglab.ca/~abeinges/blah/too-many-lists/book/ http://cglab.ca/~abeinges/blah/too-many-lists/book/
I'm using immutable arena-allocated linked lists, which is a great pattern. This is in conjunction with tagged unions, and together I have an immutable sum type + list memory model for a sort of Lisp-alike VM.
I did have to implement my own linked lists. The code is not terribly complicated. It'd be nice if there were standard one-size-fits-all linked lists in e.g. the "collections" module, but the type system needs a bit more work before it will be generic enough for that to be a good idea. Until then, you'll have to write your own or use a library given your unique constraints. But that's not really different from C...
4. "the circlejerk" a.k.a. the community
If you dislike the community there's not a lot to say. It's probably a bad idea to use a language whose community you dislike.
I personally think Rust has a great community.
5. rust's safety is overrated
C programmers routinely make memory safety mistakes, even if they're experts, even if they're using static analysis tools. You don't have to use Rust to have a safe memory model... any JVM language or most other managed language runtimes will do.
If you're writing a trivial C program it's possible it's safe. But it only takes one mistake for things to go from safe to catastrophic in C.
- charlieflowers 10y ago>> "together I have an immutable sum type + list memory model for a sort of Lisp-alike VM" So are you saying that you're using Rust as if it were a higher level language? Almost as if you had garbage collection? (If so, that's very interesting. I've been wondering about ways to do that when it's appropriate for the task at hand).
- bascule 10y agoNo, I am using Rust to implement an interpreter for a Lisp-like language