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I think Rust does need to aim for strong mainstream acceptance. As I'm sure you've experienced, lower level programming, in contrast to web development, is a (j

I think Rust does need to aim for strong mainstream acceptance. As I'm sure you've experienced, lower level programming, in contrast to web development, is a (justifiably) conservative field with regard to choice of tools. For example, "I write ANSI C because ANSI C is the standard" is an attitude I frequently encounter. ("I write ANSI C because everything has a compiler for ANSI C and it never changes" is probably what a lot of them are getting at.) Things like breaking changes, however minor, and "just use nightly" are anathema to this crowd. Yet this is the domain that could arguably benefit from Rust the most. I think Rust needs a strong foothold somewhere to prove its maturity before it can attack the C/C++ "heartland". >What makes you think that the languages which Rust displaces aren't also niche? Any definition of "niche" that includes C or C++ is meaningless.

vvanders 8y ago
Eh, depends on where you work, in gamedev land we loved to play fast & loose with nightly/etc(within reason). Heck, I'd argue that crowd is even wilder than the JS ecosystem, it's just not as public. Really, you might want to check your echo chamber a bit. Native programming is not the norm in the industry, most fresh grads have touched C or C++ once or twice and know the theory but none of the practice. Heck back when I was in college we had people coming to our community college to take the C course there since UCSD didn't offer it as part of their curriculum. Now, does the majority of software run on C/C++ based systems? Totally. However I would posit that the number of people who build those systems is much smaller than the number of people working in Java/Javascript/Python/C#/PHP/Ruby/etc. Your LoB app doesn't need the performance of C++, you just use a DB that's built with C++. You may use ngnix but the webserver behind it is probably written in Java. There's an inverted pyramid in software. The lower down the stack you go the more specialized and domain specific you get. Component/app/framework reuse means that you need less people at the bottom then you do at the top otherwise we'll all be fullstack web/frontend/backend/driver/kernel/vhdl developers. Either way I think Rust has a rich and vibrant community which isn't going away anytime soon. Would it be nicer to see wider adoption? Sure, but I'm not worried about it either.

vvanders 8y ago

Eh, depends on where you work, in gamedev land we loved to play fast & loose with nightly/etc(within reason). Heck, I'd argue that crowd is even wilder than the JS ecosystem, it's just not as public. Really, you might want to check your echo chamber a bit. Native programming is not the norm in the industry, most fresh grads have touched C or C++ once or twice and know the theory but none of the practice. Heck back when I was in college we had people coming to our community college to take the C course there since UCSD didn't offer it as part of their curriculum. Now, does the majority of software run on C/C++ based systems? Totally. However I would posit that the number of people who build those systems is much smaller than the number of people working in Java/Javascript/Python/C#/PHP/Ruby/etc. Your LoB app doesn't need the performance of C++, you just use a DB that's built with C++. You may use ngnix but the webserver behind it is probably written in Java. There's an inverted pyramid in software. The lower down the stack you go the more specialized and domain specific you get. Component/app/framework reuse means that you need less people at the bottom then you do at the top otherwise we'll all be fullstack web/frontend/backend/driver/kernel/vhdl developers. Either way I think Rust has a rich and vibrant community which isn't going away anytime soon. Would it be nicer to see wider adoption? Sure, but I'm not worried about it either.