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> I'm very bullish on Rust becoming the language of choice in the 2020s for everything from operating systems, web services, desktop applications, and more. It'

by bb88 8y ago

> I'm very bullish on Rust becoming the language of choice in the 2020s for everything from operating systems, web services, desktop applications, and more. It's that good. I don't mean to burst your bubble here. But people need to feel productive quickly with a language, otherwise they'll drop it and move to something else which makes them feel that way. Looking at this thread there are plenty of examples of "I love Rust, but..." or "It's a great language once you get past...". My favorite: "There's an awesome web framework but you have to use Rust-nightly..." Javascript is thought of as a terrible language by language snobs, and yet it has a huge following. Haskell, on the other hand, is much beloved, and doesn't. Don't get me wrong, it's got its share of love, but hasn't seen the explosive growth that python or java has. The lesson from the early 2000's is that C++ may be a superior language to Java (I used to think that way), however people were so much more productive with Java. They didn't have to worry about memory management, segfaults, crazy C++ semantics, etc. Companies were more willing to throw hardware at a problem to reduce risk/time in development. And that is still true today.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ilovecaching 8y ago
> I don't mean to burst your bubble here. You won't. > But people need to feel productive quickly with a language, otherwise they'll drop it and move to something else which makes them feel that way. This is relative. Rust is far easier to learn than C++. It has a compiler that will even enforce that you don't shoot yourself in the foot. It also has nice tooling to get you up and running quickly. It has good documentation. It has a free book. We've had no trouble getting our new grads up and running with Rust. It's not that hard. > Javascript is thought of as a terrible language by language snobs, and yet it has a huge following. Having a huge following doesn't make it less terrible by the measures of PL theory or sensibility. It's also the only choice on the web, but that may soon change, Rust has first class support for wasm so it's in a good spot there. > Haskell, on the other hand, is much beloved, and doesn't. Don't get me wrong, it's got its share of love, but hasn't seen the explosive growth that python or java has. By most accounts the Haskell ecosystem and user base are quite large considering it is intended as a research language, and the community is still growing. Rust isn't intended for research, and it's incredibly young compared to Java or Python, so it has plenty of time to catch up. > but people were so much more productive with Java. Hahaha. You mean people wrote a lot of Java. Let's please make the distinction between productivity and writing a bunch of enterprise crapware churned out by barrelful. > They didn't have to worry about memory management, segfaults, crazy C++ semantics, etc. That's exactly what Rust does for you. > Companies were more willing to throw hardware at a problem to reduce risk/time in development. And that is still true today. Actually companies are becoming more aware that speed is a feature, and that Moore's law isn't holding out. We're also moving to smaller form factors: phones, watches, glasses... the future is not on the desktop by any means, and no one wants to waste capacity in a datacenter needlessly.
- dman 8y ago
  I think Rust should stop looking at C++ as the becnhmark / comparison point for complexity. The expectations that developers have from languages has increased over time, and Rust itself has contributed to raising that bar.
  - steveklabnik 8y ago
    We don’t generally consider other languages as a measure of what complexity is “okay” or something, and are extremely aware of Rust’s complexity. Rust has a lot of requirements that directly lead to a lot of that complexity. But it’s neccesary, not incidental. Or that’s the hope, at least. Rust is also not perfect.
    - bb88 8y ago
      A lot of (but not all) complexity is solved in C/Python/Java by throwing a data structure at the problem. But is it a fair statement to say that not all data structures will work in Rust? Or is it better to say that some data structures work better in Rust than others?
      - ovao 8y ago
        Writing certain data structures in safe Rust can be hard, but not impossible. I’m not aware of any data structures that simply cannot be written in Rust.
        Tuna-Fish 8y ago
        Of course, since anything that can be written in C can be written in unsafe Rust. Though, reading the post above yours, I was thinking more about the use of data structures than the implementation of them. In C++, when faced by the need to efficiently iterate through a data structure in different, incompatible orders, the tool of choice is often just to make intrusive linked lists with multiple next pointers per element. I think I've even once implemented something that was a priority queue (heap), two different lists and a tree at a same time. While doing that in Rust is by no means impossible, it seems to me that the use of such a structure would be much more clumsy in Rust, to the point where I would try hard to solve the problem in some different way. The languages are all turing-compatible anyway, so it's not about what can be done, it's about what approaches does the language make easy and promote. Overall I really like the kind of code idiomatic Rust tends to end up like.
solidsnack9000 8y ago
Despite Java's growth, C remains the language of choice for operating systems and C++ for web browsers, desktop applications, games and high performance web services. Rust is really only competing with C/C++, not JavaScript or even Java (or Go).
- shmerl 8y ago
  I'm waiting for game engines to pick up Rust.
  - mcjiggerlog 8y ago
    Not sure why downvoted. A language aimed at replacing systems languages like C++, which happens to be the go-to language for game development, seems like a reasonable choice for a game engine. There's actually a website dedicated to tracking this - http://arewegameyet.com/ http://arewegameyet.com/
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Actually it is quite interesting, thanks for sharing. I think to be on pair with C++, a Rust based engine needs to have some Unreal like tooling. Which actually seems to be a couple of WIP on that website, so I will now get to track their progress. :)
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    To be competitive to C++ on the AAA world, Rust engine tooling need to be on pair with Ogre3D, Godot, Cocos2d-X, SpriteKit, Unreal, Unity, CryEngine. So it would be interesting to see what Seed Studios will come up with.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Some of those reasons are political, not technical. Like C on embedded vs C++. On Windows large majority of apps are in .NET with some C++. On OS X and derived systems it is all about Objective-C and Swift for desktop apps. C++ is mostly used for drivers, LLVM tooling and Metal shaders. Android is Java with some C++. ChromeOS is all about JavaScript. So no, C and C++ have lost the desktop, nowadays they are used for the graphics composition engine, while the remaining APIs are built on top of it with another set of languages. If Rust is supposed to beat C and C++ on the desktop, it needs to be able to integrate into the IDE tooling alongside the mixed language tooling experience.
piano 8y ago
> But people need to feel productive quickly with a language, otherwise they'll drop it and move to something else which makes them feel that way. Yes, I agree, but that's not the full picture. People want a language in which they can be productive quickly, but once they master it, they, or at least some of them, will then look into quality and performance. Languages like JavaScript or Python (and even Go to some extent) are popular and easy to pick up, but there's not much room for further progress. JavaScript is already stretched to its absolute limits when it comes to performance and it's still not performing very well. And when it comes to quality, well, TypeScript is a thing for a reason. I don't believe Rust will ever be as much of a language for the masses as JS, but it has a good chance to become a niche language for those who need or want more performance and/or quality than they can get with langs like JS or Python.
olavk 8y ago
Comparing Haskell to JavaScript is silly - JavaScript is popular because it is the only option in the browser. It has noting to do with the quality of the language itself. If VBScript had won, everyone would be using that. If Netscape had decided to use Scheme or Haskell as the scripting language, this is what everyone would be using. Rust is competing in the space of C and C++, it is not competing against Java or Python. People are not gong to write operating systems in Python because it feels more productive. For simpler desktop applications you may have a point, but heavyweights like Word or Photoshop are written in C++ and Rust may be a realistic migration. JavaScript or Python is not.
- carlmr 8y ago
  >heavyweights like Word or Photoshop are written in C++ and Rust may be a realistic migration Especially we've gotten used to so many of C++ shortcomings that we don't see them, but someone learning both Rust and C++ will (I'm sure) have a better experience in Rust. Even just the built in tooling (Cargo test, Cargo crates, rustup, etc.) feels so much more mature than when you're in 2018 looking at how to compile some C++ without an IDE.
- crimsonalucard 8y ago
  Text editors like vscode and atom (electron) go head to head with sublime (c++). The dominant editor now is vscode. For Rust to win it must be adopted by Gaming or gaming engines.
- jbergens 8y ago
  If Netscape had used Haskell the WWW might never has taken off. Or att least scripting it might not.

by bb88 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ilovecaching 8y ago

> I don't mean to burst your bubble here. You won't. > But people need to feel productive quickly with a language, otherwise they'll drop it and move to something else which makes them feel that way. This is relative. Rust is far easier to learn than C++. It has a compiler that will even enforce that you don't shoot yourself in the foot. It also has nice tooling to get you up and running quickly. It has good documentation. It has a free book. We've had no trouble getting our new grads up and running with Rust. It's not that hard. > Javascript is thought of as a terrible language by language snobs, and yet it has a huge following. Having a huge following doesn't make it less terrible by the measures of PL theory or sensibility. It's also the only choice on the web, but that may soon change, Rust has first class support for wasm so it's in a good spot there. > Haskell, on the other hand, is much beloved, and doesn't. Don't get me wrong, it's got its share of love, but hasn't seen the explosive growth that python or java has. By most accounts the Haskell ecosystem and user base are quite large considering it is intended as a research language, and the community is still growing. Rust isn't intended for research, and it's incredibly young compared to Java or Python, so it has plenty of time to catch up. > but people were so much more productive with Java. Hahaha. You mean people wrote a lot of Java. Let's please make the distinction between productivity and writing a bunch of enterprise crapware churned out by barrelful. > They didn't have to worry about memory management, segfaults, crazy C++ semantics, etc. That's exactly what Rust does for you. > Companies were more willing to throw hardware at a problem to reduce risk/time in development. And that is still true today. Actually companies are becoming more aware that speed is a feature, and that Moore's law isn't holding out. We're also moving to smaller form factors: phones, watches, glasses... the future is not on the desktop by any means, and no one wants to waste capacity in a datacenter needlessly.

dman 8y ago
I think Rust should stop looking at C++ as the becnhmark / comparison point for complexity. The expectations that developers have from languages has increased over time, and Rust itself has contributed to raising that bar.
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  We don’t generally consider other languages as a measure of what complexity is “okay” or something, and are extremely aware of Rust’s complexity. Rust has a lot of requirements that directly lead to a lot of that complexity. But it’s neccesary, not incidental. Or that’s the hope, at least. Rust is also not perfect.
  - bb88 8y ago
    A lot of (but not all) complexity is solved in C/Python/Java by throwing a data structure at the problem. But is it a fair statement to say that not all data structures will work in Rust? Or is it better to say that some data structures work better in Rust than others?
    - ovao 8y ago
      Writing certain data structures in safe Rust can be hard, but not impossible. I’m not aware of any data structures that simply cannot be written in Rust.
      - Tuna-Fish 8y ago
        Of course, since anything that can be written in C can be written in unsafe Rust. Though, reading the post above yours, I was thinking more about the use of data structures than the implementation of them. In C++, when faced by the need to efficiently iterate through a data structure in different, incompatible orders, the tool of choice is often just to make intrusive linked lists with multiple next pointers per element. I think I've even once implemented something that was a priority queue (heap), two different lists and a tree at a same time. While doing that in Rust is by no means impossible, it seems to me that the use of such a structure would be much more clumsy in Rust, to the point where I would try hard to solve the problem in some different way. The languages are all turing-compatible anyway, so it's not about what can be done, it's about what approaches does the language make easy and promote. Overall I really like the kind of code idiomatic Rust tends to end up like.

solidsnack9000 8y ago

Despite Java's growth, C remains the language of choice for operating systems and C++ for web browsers, desktop applications, games and high performance web services. Rust is really only competing with C/C++, not JavaScript or even Java (or Go).

shmerl 8y ago
I'm waiting for game engines to pick up Rust.
- mcjiggerlog 8y ago
  Not sure why downvoted. A language aimed at replacing systems languages like C++, which happens to be the go-to language for game development, seems like a reasonable choice for a game engine. There's actually a website dedicated to tracking this - http://arewegameyet.com/ http://arewegameyet.com/
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Actually it is quite interesting, thanks for sharing. I think to be on pair with C++, a Rust based engine needs to have some Unreal like tooling. Which actually seems to be a couple of WIP on that website, so I will now get to track their progress. :)
- pjmlp 8y ago
  To be competitive to C++ on the AAA world, Rust engine tooling need to be on pair with Ogre3D, Godot, Cocos2d-X, SpriteKit, Unreal, Unity, CryEngine. So it would be interesting to see what Seed Studios will come up with.
pjmlp 8y ago
Some of those reasons are political, not technical. Like C on embedded vs C++. On Windows large majority of apps are in .NET with some C++. On OS X and derived systems it is all about Objective-C and Swift for desktop apps. C++ is mostly used for drivers, LLVM tooling and Metal shaders. Android is Java with some C++. ChromeOS is all about JavaScript. So no, C and C++ have lost the desktop, nowadays they are used for the graphics composition engine, while the remaining APIs are built on top of it with another set of languages. If Rust is supposed to beat C and C++ on the desktop, it needs to be able to integrate into the IDE tooling alongside the mixed language tooling experience.

piano 8y ago

> But people need to feel productive quickly with a language, otherwise they'll drop it and move to something else which makes them feel that way. Yes, I agree, but that's not the full picture. People want a language in which they can be productive quickly, but once they master it, they, or at least some of them, will then look into quality and performance. Languages like JavaScript or Python (and even Go to some extent) are popular and easy to pick up, but there's not much room for further progress. JavaScript is already stretched to its absolute limits when it comes to performance and it's still not performing very well. And when it comes to quality, well, TypeScript is a thing for a reason. I don't believe Rust will ever be as much of a language for the masses as JS, but it has a good chance to become a niche language for those who need or want more performance and/or quality than they can get with langs like JS or Python.

olavk 8y ago

Comparing Haskell to JavaScript is silly - JavaScript is popular because it is the only option in the browser. It has noting to do with the quality of the language itself. If VBScript had won, everyone would be using that. If Netscape had decided to use Scheme or Haskell as the scripting language, this is what everyone would be using. Rust is competing in the space of C and C++, it is not competing against Java or Python. People are not gong to write operating systems in Python because it feels more productive. For simpler desktop applications you may have a point, but heavyweights like Word or Photoshop are written in C++ and Rust may be a realistic migration. JavaScript or Python is not.

carlmr 8y ago
>heavyweights like Word or Photoshop are written in C++ and Rust may be a realistic migration Especially we've gotten used to so many of C++ shortcomings that we don't see them, but someone learning both Rust and C++ will (I'm sure) have a better experience in Rust. Even just the built in tooling (Cargo test, Cargo crates, rustup, etc.) feels so much more mature than when you're in 2018 looking at how to compile some C++ without an IDE.
crimsonalucard 8y ago
Text editors like vscode and atom (electron) go head to head with sublime (c++). The dominant editor now is vscode. For Rust to win it must be adopted by Gaming or gaming engines.
jbergens 8y ago
If Netscape had used Haskell the WWW might never has taken off. Or att least scripting it might not.