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I don't think it's fair to say Rust is still a research language any more than it's fair to see the ongoing evolution of C++ makes it a research language. Rust
by gnode 7y ago
I don't think it's fair to say Rust is still a research language any more than it's fair to see the ongoing evolution of C++ makes it a research language. Rust is being used to engineer production software (parts of Firefox, Tor and Microsoft Azure), and its development is aimed mostly at practical and ergonomic issues, rather than experimental or esoteric features.
I agree that there's a cost to introducing a new language to a codebase. On the other hand, there's a cost to being stuck with only C, which manifests as security vulnerabilities and high cognitive overhead for want of better abstractions. I believe the Linux maintainers are taking a sensible and conservative stance here in allowing use of Rust, but not allowing Linux to depend on it.
- geocar 7y ago> I don't think it's fair to say Rust is still a research language any more than it's fair to see the ongoing evolution of C++ makes it a research language I would accept that. The idea that C++ code from ten years ago can't always interoperate with C++ code written today is indeed a problem, but I think it's a very different problem that you're running into if you're trying to use Rust applications and libraries built ten years ago. > there's a cost to being stuck with only C, which manifests as security vulnerabilities and high cognitive overhead for want of better abstractions There's also a cost with abstractions. People who use Rust thinking it has "zero-cost abstractions" should probably get help crossing the street as well. > I believe the Linux maintainers are taking a sensible and conservative stance here in allowing use of Rust, but not allowing Linux to depend on it. 100% agreed. Rust may indeed be the future, but the only way we'll know for sure is if we try it.