3 ms·

Eh, I use Rust as a python replacement for most tasks (exception is for something super simple that's just a couple lines with pandas). Rust isn't bound to low

Eh, I use Rust as a python replacement for most tasks (exception is for something super simple that's just a couple lines with pandas). Rust isn't bound to low level tasks - it certainly excels at them, but there's nothing stopping you from writing web services in it

shrimp_emoji 7y ago
>I use Rust as a python replacement for most tasks Wie bitte??? My wig has been snatched.
- shpongled 7y ago
  To be honest, I find it extremely frustrating to write anything non-trivial in Python (or any dynamically typed language, for that matter).
- pierreyoda 7y ago
  Rust complexity is a bit overblown. I also revert automatically to it now if I feel like Typescript (Node.js) won't cut it, even for < 1K LOCs. I may be biased since I've been using it for almost 6 years, but you mostly don't need to worry about lifetime annotations which IMO is the really foreign part if you are already comfortable with functional languages, especially since the compiler is unbelievably useful. Many well-known Rust crates also account for the majority of the best all-around libraries I've ever personally used in any language, and you can actually use them without a PHD in build systems thanks to Cargo. Re-usability is superb thanks to traits (composition over inheritance) and generics, even if still immature domains tend to be overly generic for the end-user (HTTP networking for instance, though it's getting better fast).
- bsder 7y ago
  I'm beginning to lean toward the camp of Rust replacing Python, too--and I've been using Python since 1996-ish. My primary limitation in Rust is the state of the libraries--Python libraries and frameworks are simply a LOT more stable in general. The first question is "What does Python do better than Rust?" Libraries/frameworks is the big one--there is no excellent Django-equivalent or Jupyter notebook-equivalent, for example (maybe there never will be by virtue of the language differences, but it is what it is). Python helper scripts generally ship in .py form so you can fix bugs in crappy Python scripts (if people start shipping Rust auxiliary scripts that's going to be a step backwards). Verbosity--okay, I'll concede that if I want things to be mostly GC, I'm writing a lot of extra wording in Rust. And when I reverse the question: "What does Rust do better than Python?" The answer is a whole lot. Strong typing is a big one--because of Rust doing okay type inference I don't wind up with types repeated very often--it feels more like Python. Performance, sure, but I rarely care. Tooling seems to be a bit better--and Rust seems to be targeting to be a first class citizen on Windows. And, of course, concurrency--Python should have just sucked it up, taken the performance hit in 3.0 to remove the GIL and then optimized performance back over 7 versions (Good concurrency is becoming a standard in languages--I suspect Python is eventually going to concede this or start losing mindshare--and the pain would have been best suffered back at 3.0). Yes, there are issues. If you have a doubly-linked anything in Rust, you're about to have a bad time (or not, if you REALLY need double-linkage--it's time to quit being pedantic, to break out "unsafe" and to encapsulate things). If you're writing a library, your lifetime annotations look like 300 baud line noise. I really learn a new language about every 10 years or so--I have to feel a significant upside without a lot of downside in order to move (my last big change was Perl->Python in about 1996--my history of languages that I knew cold is assembly->C(with a C++ excursion for a bit--I got better)->Perl->Python). At this point, for one-off things that I'm writing a quick 100 lines, I'm starting to reach for Rust more and more and Python less and less.

shrimp_emoji 7y ago

>I use Rust as a python replacement for most tasks Wie bitte??? My wig has been snatched.

shpongled 7y ago
To be honest, I find it extremely frustrating to write anything non-trivial in Python (or any dynamically typed language, for that matter).
pierreyoda 7y ago
Rust complexity is a bit overblown. I also revert automatically to it now if I feel like Typescript (Node.js) won't cut it, even for < 1K LOCs. I may be biased since I've been using it for almost 6 years, but you mostly don't need to worry about lifetime annotations which IMO is the really foreign part if you are already comfortable with functional languages, especially since the compiler is unbelievably useful. Many well-known Rust crates also account for the majority of the best all-around libraries I've ever personally used in any language, and you can actually use them without a PHD in build systems thanks to Cargo. Re-usability is superb thanks to traits (composition over inheritance) and generics, even if still immature domains tend to be overly generic for the end-user (HTTP networking for instance, though it's getting better fast).
bsder 7y ago
I'm beginning to lean toward the camp of Rust replacing Python, too--and I've been using Python since 1996-ish. My primary limitation in Rust is the state of the libraries--Python libraries and frameworks are simply a LOT more stable in general. The first question is "What does Python do better than Rust?" Libraries/frameworks is the big one--there is no excellent Django-equivalent or Jupyter notebook-equivalent, for example (maybe there never will be by virtue of the language differences, but it is what it is). Python helper scripts generally ship in .py form so you can fix bugs in crappy Python scripts (if people start shipping Rust auxiliary scripts that's going to be a step backwards). Verbosity--okay, I'll concede that if I want things to be mostly GC, I'm writing a lot of extra wording in Rust. And when I reverse the question: "What does Rust do better than Python?" The answer is a whole lot. Strong typing is a big one--because of Rust doing okay type inference I don't wind up with types repeated very often--it feels more like Python. Performance, sure, but I rarely care. Tooling seems to be a bit better--and Rust seems to be targeting to be a first class citizen on Windows. And, of course, concurrency--Python should have just sucked it up, taken the performance hit in 3.0 to remove the GIL and then optimized performance back over 7 versions (Good concurrency is becoming a standard in languages--I suspect Python is eventually going to concede this or start losing mindshare--and the pain would have been best suffered back at 3.0). Yes, there are issues. If you have a doubly-linked anything in Rust, you're about to have a bad time (or not, if you REALLY need double-linkage--it's time to quit being pedantic, to break out "unsafe" and to encapsulate things). If you're writing a library, your lifetime annotations look like 300 baud line noise. I really learn a new language about every 10 years or so--I have to feel a significant upside without a lot of downside in order to move (my last big change was Perl->Python in about 1996--my history of languages that I knew cold is assembly->C(with a C++ excursion for a bit--I got better)->Perl->Python). At this point, for one-off things that I'm writing a quick 100 lines, I'm starting to reach for Rust more and more and Python less and less.