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I think the question was what the biggest selling point is for those who already do e.g. C++, not for those using dynamic languages like Python.

0815test 8y ago
Both questions are important, though. The Rust community is in a very compelling position, in being able to appeal to both the C/C++/'system programming' and the Python/Ruby/etc/'high-level application programming' dev communities.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  What I was trying to say was that ease of rafactoring compared to a dynamic language like Python isn't omitted because it's "non-obvious". Rather, it's in fact quite obvious, and simply omitted because it's answering a different question than the one that was asked. Robust refactoring isn't Rust-specific or even new. It's always been the selling point of many statically typed languages, like C++, D, Java, etc.
  - estebank 8y ago
    I mentioned Python because it sits in the other extreme, but the combination of pattern matching, strong types, type inference and ergonomic combinators on the standard library makes the experience much nicer than, for example, Scala. Robust refactoring isn't new. Rust isn't novel. It's just well put together because it had the benefit of hindsight and being able to consider how different advanced features fit together without having to abide by backwards compatibility until recently. Refactoring a single threaded process that operates over a vector can be a single line code change, and the compiler is capable of complaining about data races by leveraging the type system and lifetime analysis.
    - kod 8y ago
      Much nicer than scala? I don't see how you can claim that if you've touched futures in both languages. Rust is a nice language for threaded programming, but the async situation is a trainwreck 4 years in the making.
      - 0815test 8y ago
        The async situation for Rust is very much in flux, of course - see https://areweasyncyet.rs/ https://areweasyncyet.rs/ for details and updates. It's definitely a pain point at this time, and stability itself is an important value so I can see this making Rust less desirable for some - but calling it a "trainwreck" that the Rust community is supposedly to blame for just seems pointless, other than as snarky flamebait. That sort of comment is a good fit for `rustjerk`, not for the sort of substantive discussion we seek on HN.
      - estebank 8y ago
        I have touched both and async in Rust is indeed half baked at the moment. That a factor of immaturity of Rust and maturity of Scala. I also had a Scala codebase that had 4 different Future classes, due to it having been an early adopter. I was thinking if the language itself, where it needs to keep backwards compatibility with Java (the distinction between case classes and classes, for example) and over engineering (implicit action at a distance all over the place). I think Scala is a nice language buried in way too much syntactic sugar. Interestingly enough, Rust's syntax doesn't bother me but quite a few people seem out off by it. Rust is new and it advances slowly but at a steady state. Given its immaturity in some areas I can only go off potential and the async story seems to have a bright future, despite it's somewhat underwhelming present.
leshow 8y ago
I think you'd be surprised, Rust has seen a lot of adoption & interest from the dynamic languages crowd.
- jchw 8y ago
  Go and Rust killed my interest in writing Python code. A paradigm shift worth losing amazing libraries and frameworks like SQLalchemy and Django is rare, but I believe we are here (and have been for a while.)
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    > Go and Rust killed my interest in writing Python code. Strange to see Go suddenly brought in to support Rust like this. Was it Go that killed said interest or Rust? Why is Go relevant here?
    - jchw 8y ago
      For the same reasons: it offers a strong alternative to C/C++ with memory safety. Often I want performance like C++ but cleaner code and memory safety. Before recently, Python was a go-to when you didn't want to cut yourself on C++s sharp edges, even with it's disadvantages. The overlap isn't clean, but Go is strong for writing simple programs and glue layers, and Rust is strong for writing complex software where correctness and performance are both very important. Python still has a fair bit of expressive power that Go and Rust would struggle to provide, but I think both can be compelling alternatives in different cases, and they offer a lot in exchange (such as, full type safety and improved performance.) I realize Rust offers much more safety than Go, but both of them are eons ahead of C++ in this regard. When you're starting from nothing, any level of guarantees is a huge shift.
      - blub 8y ago
        You're confusing "correctness" with not crashing because of invalid memory access, which is a low bar to clear. There's really no proof that systems written in Rust have better reliability compared to systems written in Java, Typescript or PHP, is there? I've recently had the same discussion with someone claiming that FP offers stronger correctness guarantees than OO languages: where's the proof? Furthermore, Rust doesn't offer "much more" safety than Go either, in fact Go's GC suggests that it's harder to make memory handling errors in Go compared to Rust. After all Rust's still vulnerable to memory leaks. Finally, comparing C++ and Rust reliability is much more nuanced than your dismissive attempt. Modern C++ written by an experienced team + good tooling can have really good memory safety, not as good as Rust, but good enough so that the other advantages of C++ can tip the balance in its favor. The problem: many projects don't use modern C++, or they don't have experienced devs or they neglect the tooling. But here's the kicker - those same teams are unlikely to use Rust anyway. Here I expect Firefox or Chrome to be given as counter-examples to which I's say that it's likely impossible to write a memory safe browser in C++, due to the project dynamic. Remains to be seen if it's possible to do it in Rust.

0815test 8y ago

Both questions are important, though. The Rust community is in a very compelling position, in being able to appeal to both the C/C++/'system programming' and the Python/Ruby/etc/'high-level application programming' dev communities.

mehrdadn 8y ago
What I was trying to say was that ease of rafactoring compared to a dynamic language like Python isn't omitted because it's "non-obvious". Rather, it's in fact quite obvious, and simply omitted because it's answering a different question than the one that was asked. Robust refactoring isn't Rust-specific or even new. It's always been the selling point of many statically typed languages, like C++, D, Java, etc.
- estebank 8y ago
  I mentioned Python because it sits in the other extreme, but the combination of pattern matching, strong types, type inference and ergonomic combinators on the standard library makes the experience much nicer than, for example, Scala. Robust refactoring isn't new. Rust isn't novel. It's just well put together because it had the benefit of hindsight and being able to consider how different advanced features fit together without having to abide by backwards compatibility until recently. Refactoring a single threaded process that operates over a vector can be a single line code change, and the compiler is capable of complaining about data races by leveraging the type system and lifetime analysis.
  - kod 8y ago
    Much nicer than scala? I don't see how you can claim that if you've touched futures in both languages. Rust is a nice language for threaded programming, but the async situation is a trainwreck 4 years in the making.
    - 0815test 8y ago
      The async situation for Rust is very much in flux, of course - see https://areweasyncyet.rs/ https://areweasyncyet.rs/ for details and updates. It's definitely a pain point at this time, and stability itself is an important value so I can see this making Rust less desirable for some - but calling it a "trainwreck" that the Rust community is supposedly to blame for just seems pointless, other than as snarky flamebait. That sort of comment is a good fit for `rustjerk`, not for the sort of substantive discussion we seek on HN.
    - estebank 8y ago
      I have touched both and async in Rust is indeed half baked at the moment. That a factor of immaturity of Rust and maturity of Scala. I also had a Scala codebase that had 4 different Future classes, due to it having been an early adopter. I was thinking if the language itself, where it needs to keep backwards compatibility with Java (the distinction between case classes and classes, for example) and over engineering (implicit action at a distance all over the place). I think Scala is a nice language buried in way too much syntactic sugar. Interestingly enough, Rust's syntax doesn't bother me but quite a few people seem out off by it. Rust is new and it advances slowly but at a steady state. Given its immaturity in some areas I can only go off potential and the async story seems to have a bright future, despite it's somewhat underwhelming present.

leshow 8y ago

I think you'd be surprised, Rust has seen a lot of adoption & interest from the dynamic languages crowd.

jchw 8y ago
Go and Rust killed my interest in writing Python code. A paradigm shift worth losing amazing libraries and frameworks like SQLalchemy and Django is rare, but I believe we are here (and have been for a while.)
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  > Go and Rust killed my interest in writing Python code. Strange to see Go suddenly brought in to support Rust like this. Was it Go that killed said interest or Rust? Why is Go relevant here?
  - jchw 8y ago
    For the same reasons: it offers a strong alternative to C/C++ with memory safety. Often I want performance like C++ but cleaner code and memory safety. Before recently, Python was a go-to when you didn't want to cut yourself on C++s sharp edges, even with it's disadvantages. The overlap isn't clean, but Go is strong for writing simple programs and glue layers, and Rust is strong for writing complex software where correctness and performance are both very important. Python still has a fair bit of expressive power that Go and Rust would struggle to provide, but I think both can be compelling alternatives in different cases, and they offer a lot in exchange (such as, full type safety and improved performance.) I realize Rust offers much more safety than Go, but both of them are eons ahead of C++ in this regard. When you're starting from nothing, any level of guarantees is a huge shift.
    - blub 8y ago
      You're confusing "correctness" with not crashing because of invalid memory access, which is a low bar to clear. There's really no proof that systems written in Rust have better reliability compared to systems written in Java, Typescript or PHP, is there? I've recently had the same discussion with someone claiming that FP offers stronger correctness guarantees than OO languages: where's the proof? Furthermore, Rust doesn't offer "much more" safety than Go either, in fact Go's GC suggests that it's harder to make memory handling errors in Go compared to Rust. After all Rust's still vulnerable to memory leaks. Finally, comparing C++ and Rust reliability is much more nuanced than your dismissive attempt. Modern C++ written by an experienced team + good tooling can have really good memory safety, not as good as Rust, but good enough so that the other advantages of C++ can tip the balance in its favor. The problem: many projects don't use modern C++, or they don't have experienced devs or they neglect the tooling. But here's the kicker - those same teams are unlikely to use Rust anyway. Here I expect Firefox or Chrome to be given as counter-examples to which I's say that it's likely impossible to write a memory safe browser in C++, due to the project dynamic. Remains to be seen if it's possible to do it in Rust.