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Give Rust a try. People like to complain about the Rust learning curve, but comparative to the language it's trying to replace (C++) it's actually quite simple

Give Rust a try. People like to complain about the Rust learning curve, but comparative to the language it's trying to replace (C++) it's actually quite simple and the compiler/tooling will hold your hand compared to the conventions you have to memorize to use C++17 safely.

banachtarski 8y ago
Not OP but i keep trying and the tools still have a long way to go and compile times are abysmal (even relative to C++). For example, https://github.com/rust-lang/rls-vscode/issues/237 https://github.com/rust-lang/rls-vscode/issues/237 this issue that has persisted for over a year with no signs of being fixed. With C++, in spite of its warts, I can still be productive just because of the ecosystem around it. Rust was something I was gung-ho about, but after repeated attempts to create a medium/large project, I am still in a wait and see mode. Moreover, it's just not powerful enough. Many features are coming in, but they break the compiler and you end up needing to work off nightly regardless. I think it's a good effort, but people just recommending the Rust train nonchalantly really need to step back and check their biases.
- ilovecaching 8y ago
  I don't think using a vscode plugin as an example of Rust not being ready is very fair. You could always fix the issue yourself, it is open source you know. My original point was that we shouldn't be building monolithic projects in a single language, but if there is an absolute requirement for it, Rust compile times aren't that bad. C++ also has very long compile times, it just comes with the territory. The reason Go can compile in under a second is because they purposefully keep the language specification simplistically small. I'm not recommending Rust nonchalantly. I write rust every day professionally, and I basis my opinions on the experiences I've had with it in that environment.
  - banachtarski 8y ago
    It is fair because there are very few options for authoring Rust code. Regardless of who is responsible, a robust and working toolchain is sort of the minimum bar for a language, and yes it's open source, and yes I've looked at the code, but no it's not worth the time right now because better options exist. I'm super familiar with C++ compile times but again, there exist a lot of infrastructure to at least help with that or eliminate it completely (with some tricks). I'm not saying Rust will never get there, but for me, too soon too early.
sprash 8y ago
Rust seems to be the biggest joke of all time. Calling itself systems language when the average hello world program is 4 MB (!) in size. Also when I tried to compile a rather low complexity example with 80 lines of code the compiler ran out of RAM. Seriously? The reason Rust was invented was to make the monolithic firefox executable to have multiple tabs that don't block each other and can act concurrently. All of this has already been solved in a much cheaper and already available way: Unix processes.
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  The size of hello world has dropped considerably in the last release now that we no longer bundle jemalloc. The smallest Rust binary ever produced was 145 bytes; you can have small binaries if that’s what you need, hello world and default settings are not optimized for tiny ones. How much RAM did the machine have? (Oh, and you’re wrong about the Firefox thing as well.)
IshKebab 8y ago
I would say Rust is simple... compared to C++. On an absolute scale it really isn't that simple at all. Not like Go or Python. For instance, take a look at the things you have to do to get perfectly reasonable-looking code to compile if Non-Lexical Lifetimes are not allowed: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/2094-nll.md https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/2094-nll....

banachtarski 8y ago

Not OP but i keep trying and the tools still have a long way to go and compile times are abysmal (even relative to C++). For example, https://github.com/rust-lang/rls-vscode/issues/237 https://github.com/rust-lang/rls-vscode/issues/237 this issue that has persisted for over a year with no signs of being fixed. With C++, in spite of its warts, I can still be productive just because of the ecosystem around it. Rust was something I was gung-ho about, but after repeated attempts to create a medium/large project, I am still in a wait and see mode. Moreover, it's just not powerful enough. Many features are coming in, but they break the compiler and you end up needing to work off nightly regardless. I think it's a good effort, but people just recommending the Rust train nonchalantly really need to step back and check their biases.

ilovecaching 8y ago
I don't think using a vscode plugin as an example of Rust not being ready is very fair. You could always fix the issue yourself, it is open source you know. My original point was that we shouldn't be building monolithic projects in a single language, but if there is an absolute requirement for it, Rust compile times aren't that bad. C++ also has very long compile times, it just comes with the territory. The reason Go can compile in under a second is because they purposefully keep the language specification simplistically small. I'm not recommending Rust nonchalantly. I write rust every day professionally, and I basis my opinions on the experiences I've had with it in that environment.
- banachtarski 8y ago
  It is fair because there are very few options for authoring Rust code. Regardless of who is responsible, a robust and working toolchain is sort of the minimum bar for a language, and yes it's open source, and yes I've looked at the code, but no it's not worth the time right now because better options exist. I'm super familiar with C++ compile times but again, there exist a lot of infrastructure to at least help with that or eliminate it completely (with some tricks). I'm not saying Rust will never get there, but for me, too soon too early.

sprash 8y ago

Rust seems to be the biggest joke of all time. Calling itself systems language when the average hello world program is 4 MB (!) in size. Also when I tried to compile a rather low complexity example with 80 lines of code the compiler ran out of RAM. Seriously? The reason Rust was invented was to make the monolithic firefox executable to have multiple tabs that don't block each other and can act concurrently. All of this has already been solved in a much cheaper and already available way: Unix processes.

steveklabnik 8y ago
The size of hello world has dropped considerably in the last release now that we no longer bundle jemalloc. The smallest Rust binary ever produced was 145 bytes; you can have small binaries if that’s what you need, hello world and default settings are not optimized for tiny ones. How much RAM did the machine have? (Oh, and you’re wrong about the Firefox thing as well.)

IshKebab 8y ago

I would say Rust is simple... compared to C++. On an absolute scale it really isn't that simple at all. Not like Go or Python. For instance, take a look at the things you have to do to get perfectly reasonable-looking code to compile if Non-Lexical Lifetimes are not allowed: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/2094-nll.md https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/2094-nll....