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> Rust is without a doubt a (much) "better C++" but I'm not sure a better C++ is necessarily what systems programming needs most. I agree but if better C++ is

by alxlaz 7y ago

> Rust is without a doubt a (much) "better C++" but I'm not sure a better C++ is necessarily what systems programming needs most. I agree but if better C++ is what the PL industry can give me, then I'll take it, thank you very much! (Frankly at this point I'll take anything that isn't C++...)

pron 7y ago
There are alternatives that more appeal to my taste in the works. Given the cost of changing language, any language, I'll wait and see how they turn out before making decisions.
- jeltz 7y ago
  Which ones are more to your taste? For me it is mostly Zig which seems closer to what I want to see in a language. Crystal also looks promising but I prefer languages without GC. Rust is a good language but it is a bit too complex and restrictive at times.
  - pron 7y ago
    Yep, Zig is the one I like, and IMO it's a language that shows an interesting yet very simple model for what systems programming can be. But I'll admit that it's easier to look good before you're put to the test in the field, so I'll wait and see what becomes of it.
    - devit 7y ago
      As far as I can tell Zig is equivalent to a subset of C++ and thus completely lacks all the guarantees that Rust provides and several of the features that C++ has; so there is no point to use it instead of those languages.
      - pron 7y ago
        If you prefer languages with more features, then simple languages aren't for you. But me? If you told me you'd give me language X but with far fewer features, my eyes would light up, and I'd only ask, are you sure you can't get rid of any more? As Saint-Exupery said, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Zig has all you need to write clear, efficient, generic, systems code and nothing more, but also nothing less. It is also intended to help you write safe code, but it goes about it differently from Rust.
        devit 7y ago
        As far as I can tell Zig only has C-like malloc/free-based allocation and thus is vulnerable to use-after-free, and so does NOT help you write safe code. It also doesn't seem capable of safe concurrency.
        pron 7y ago
        You assume that the only way a language can help you write safe code is by making sound guarantees; this is wrong. A language can also help you write safe code by making it easy to selectively add runtime checks (that can then be selectively turned off in production), by making code-build-test cycles faster, and by making it easy to inspect what the code does. This approach has tradeoffs: it is unsound so it will let some undefined behavior bugs through; on the other hand it might do more to reduce bugs that are unrelated to undefined behavior.

by alxlaz 7y ago

pron 7y ago

There are alternatives that more appeal to my taste in the works. Given the cost of changing language, any language, I'll wait and see how they turn out before making decisions.

jeltz 7y ago
Which ones are more to your taste? For me it is mostly Zig which seems closer to what I want to see in a language. Crystal also looks promising but I prefer languages without GC. Rust is a good language but it is a bit too complex and restrictive at times.
- pron 7y ago
  Yep, Zig is the one I like, and IMO it's a language that shows an interesting yet very simple model for what systems programming can be. But I'll admit that it's easier to look good before you're put to the test in the field, so I'll wait and see what becomes of it.
  - devit 7y ago
    As far as I can tell Zig is equivalent to a subset of C++ and thus completely lacks all the guarantees that Rust provides and several of the features that C++ has; so there is no point to use it instead of those languages.
    - pron 7y ago
      If you prefer languages with more features, then simple languages aren't for you. But me? If you told me you'd give me language X but with far fewer features, my eyes would light up, and I'd only ask, are you sure you can't get rid of any more? As Saint-Exupery said, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Zig has all you need to write clear, efficient, generic, systems code and nothing more, but also nothing less. It is also intended to help you write safe code, but it goes about it differently from Rust.
      - devit 7y ago
        As far as I can tell Zig only has C-like malloc/free-based allocation and thus is vulnerable to use-after-free, and so does NOT help you write safe code. It also doesn't seem capable of safe concurrency.
        pron 7y ago
        You assume that the only way a language can help you write safe code is by making sound guarantees; this is wrong. A language can also help you write safe code by making it easy to selectively add runtime checks (that can then be selectively turned off in production), by making code-build-test cycles faster, and by making it easy to inspect what the code does. This approach has tradeoffs: it is unsound so it will let some undefined behavior bugs through; on the other hand it might do more to reduce bugs that are unrelated to undefined behavior.