4 ms·

I'm genuinely interested in why you find it cleaner, please elaborate?

• gpm 8y ago
  Three thoughts: - The types help, seeing "WGPUSwapChainId" tells me exactly what sort of object is returned (a reference to some object held elsewhere), we don't get this in Rust because of type inference. - Rust doesn't help in this example because it's just a bunch of API calls... so it's a more complex language for nothing. Obviously this doesn't generalize. - The event handling is much simpler in the C code, this also doesn't generalize.
  • asddgsgsaxg 8y ago
    > seeing "WGPUSwapChainId" tells me exactly what sort of object is returned (a reference to some object held elsewhere) Check out RLS (the rust language server) to get intellisense like this working in your favorite editor.
    • jonathanyc 8y ago
      I think that in reviewing code this is definitely something where languages with type inference lose clarity; Rust is even worse because of the Deref/Into idioms. I think the solution is for diff viewers incl. those on the web to support something like intellisense, but obviously we are a very long way away from that.
      • devit 8y ago
        You could have the compiler produce a fully explicit version (I'm not sure if Rust can do that out of the box at the moment)
        • steveklabnik 8y ago
          ~~It can't.~~ See below, it can! I tend to find, personally, that this kind of thing doesn't interfere strongly with reviewing. I think this is because I have an extensive background in dynamically typed languages and ones with strong inference like Rust, so I'm more used to it, whereas people who don't come from said backgrounds prefer more explicitness. YMMV of course!
          • jonathanyc 8y ago
            I don’t think it’s just “strong” inference that’s the problem; I find I have an easier time reading ML because the inference somehow feels more obvious. After thinking about it some more, I think it really is deref coercion that is the gotcha, especially with function chaining.
            • steveklabnik 8y ago
              By "strong" I really mean "type inference" over "type deduction", to be clear. But yeah, I could see that.
          • Tohquai7 8y ago
            It can. -Z unstable-options -Zunpretty=hir,typed // source pub fn square(num: i32) -> i32 { num * num } // expanded use ::std::prelude::v1::*; extern crate std; pub fn square(num: i32) -> i32 ({ ((num as i32) * (num as i32) as i32) } as i32) You can try on https://rust.godbolt.org/ https://rust.godbolt.org/
            • steveklabnik 8y ago
              Oh dang! That's very cool, thank you!
  • mrec 8y ago
    > we don't get this in Rust because of type inference Might be worth mentioning that (AFAIK) type inference is entirely optional in Rust. If you prefer to write explicit types on your decls that's fine. (I suspect there are pathological cases where the type is impractical to write, but you'd have been screwed then anyway.) This won't help you when reading other people's code, obviously.