7 ms·

Cargo's next few years

110 points by mcp_ 8y ago

ChrisSD 8y ago
I assume the title is meant to be "Cargo's next few years"?
- sctb 8y ago
  Thanks, we've removed the leading “(Rust) ”.
  - xkapastel 8y ago
    What about the "next" instead of "new"?
    - sctb 8y ago
      Good heavens! Yes, thanks. Lexer error on my part.
      - ChrisSD 8y ago
        Ha! I should've been more explicit.
dbcurtis 8y ago
Very happy to see mainstream support for cross-compile at the top of the list.
- justwalt 8y ago
  I've been diving headfirst into C for a project at work with no previous experience, while being quite comfortable in Rust. I couldn't agree more.
dochtman 8y ago
Discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/amat47/cargos_next_few_years/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/amat47/cargos_next_fe... https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/cargos-next-few-years/9321/6 https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/cargos-next-few-years/9321...
johnisgood 8y ago
> it lowers barriers to contribution Arguably this is a bad thing. Lowering the bar is not necessarily a good thing. How could it be? EDIT: Please if you down-vote, could you also provide a reason as to why lowering barriers to contribution is inherently a good thing, and why even considering the idea that it may not be, is something utterly horrible that requires a down-vote? Sure, you don't have to, just trying...
- achamayou 8y ago
  Dealing with unnecessary build and packaging complications, often dictated by legacy constraints, is a distraction for a systems programmer and does nothing for the quality of the software itself.
  - johnisgood 8y ago
    OK, but that means that people who are more motivated and knowledgeable (depends) will be the ones contributing, or will make up the majority of contributors. Does it not? I can see how it could be beneficial to a project.
    - papaf 8y ago
      people who are more motivated and knowledgeable (depends) will be the ones contributing I have contributed to projects where I am neither motivated or knowledgeable.Sometimes its enough to be annoyed by a bug or confusing behaviour.
      - johnisgood 8y ago
        I would say that is being motivated though, just with a different motivator! :P
    - achamayou 8y ago
      But they will be knowledgeable in something that is only tangentially related to systems programming. You are potentially missing out on a lot of talented systems programmers who are not willing or able to put up with terrible build and packaging infra and therefore stick to another domain. As for motivation, you are also missing out on anyone who has a small contribution to make but isn’t willing to dedicate hours trawling through Makefiles. That doesn’t seem good either?
davidhyde 8y ago
Cargo is great and keeps getting better. However, in the embedded space I find the whole area of “features” very confusing. Just the fact that doing a web search for “rust features” will not usually get you what you want because we use the word “features” for everything! But in the embedded rust world, having a good understanding about how features affect the build is critical to successfully building something with no standard library. Thankfully the rust community really shines here and you find stack overflow questions answered at record speeds!
ShorsHammer 8y ago
There's a lot of hype around rust which may or may not pan out, but cargo should really be the gold standard for package management/build systems going forward, it's incredibly well designed. Everything is painless and integrated: builds, tests, benchmarks, publishing, installing dependencies, downloading cli binaries. When you eventually have to go back to all the other hacked together Frankenstein alternatives out there it's a painful, frustrating experience.

110 points by mcp_ 8y ago

ChrisSD 8y ago

I assume the title is meant to be "Cargo's next few years"?

sctb 8y ago
Thanks, we've removed the leading “(Rust) ”.
- xkapastel 8y ago
  What about the "next" instead of "new"?
  - sctb 8y ago
    Good heavens! Yes, thanks. Lexer error on my part.
    - ChrisSD 8y ago
      Ha! I should've been more explicit.

dbcurtis 8y ago

Very happy to see mainstream support for cross-compile at the top of the list.

justwalt 8y ago
I've been diving headfirst into C for a project at work with no previous experience, while being quite comfortable in Rust. I couldn't agree more.

dochtman 8y ago

Discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/amat47/cargos_next_few_years/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/amat47/cargos_next_fe... https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/cargos-next-few-years/9321/6 https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/cargos-next-few-years/9321...

johnisgood 8y ago

> it lowers barriers to contribution Arguably this is a bad thing. Lowering the bar is not necessarily a good thing. How could it be? EDIT: Please if you down-vote, could you also provide a reason as to why lowering barriers to contribution is inherently a good thing, and why even considering the idea that it may not be, is something utterly horrible that requires a down-vote? Sure, you don't have to, just trying...

achamayou 8y ago
Dealing with unnecessary build and packaging complications, often dictated by legacy constraints, is a distraction for a systems programmer and does nothing for the quality of the software itself.
- johnisgood 8y ago
  OK, but that means that people who are more motivated and knowledgeable (depends) will be the ones contributing, or will make up the majority of contributors. Does it not? I can see how it could be beneficial to a project.
  - papaf 8y ago
    people who are more motivated and knowledgeable (depends) will be the ones contributing I have contributed to projects where I am neither motivated or knowledgeable.Sometimes its enough to be annoyed by a bug or confusing behaviour.
    - johnisgood 8y ago
      I would say that is being motivated though, just with a different motivator! :P
  - achamayou 8y ago
    But they will be knowledgeable in something that is only tangentially related to systems programming. You are potentially missing out on a lot of talented systems programmers who are not willing or able to put up with terrible build and packaging infra and therefore stick to another domain. As for motivation, you are also missing out on anyone who has a small contribution to make but isn’t willing to dedicate hours trawling through Makefiles. That doesn’t seem good either?

davidhyde 8y ago

Cargo is great and keeps getting better. However, in the embedded space I find the whole area of “features” very confusing. Just the fact that doing a web search for “rust features” will not usually get you what you want because we use the word “features” for everything! But in the embedded rust world, having a good understanding about how features affect the build is critical to successfully building something with no standard library. Thankfully the rust community really shines here and you find stack overflow questions answered at record speeds!

ShorsHammer 8y ago

There's a lot of hype around rust which may or may not pan out, but cargo should really be the gold standard for package management/build systems going forward, it's incredibly well designed. Everything is painless and integrated: builds, tests, benchmarks, publishing, installing dependencies, downloading cli binaries. When you eventually have to go back to all the other hacked together Frankenstein alternatives out there it's a painful, frustrating experience.