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> I am struggling to think of a circumstance in which something would be easier to write in Rust than in Python, factoring out "performance" --- just comparing

> I am struggling to think of a circumstance in which something would be easier to write in Rust than in Python, factoring out "performance" --- just comparing the languages themselves. Most Python backend projects I've worked on would have been better off written in Rust (had it existed) the same way most of the Javascript projects I've worked on would have been better off written in Typescript. Maybe it's just the projects I've worked on (or their size) but maintenance and refactoring to deal with growth of or changes in business requirements were by far more time consuming than actually writing code. The amount of time lost on onboarding and writing trivial tests that could have been handled by the Rust compiler dwarfs true R&D time, let alone time spent debugging bugs that could have been prevented by encoding business logic into the type system. At my current job I often still pull out Python to prototype logic or Typescript to spin up a quick and dirty intranet app but for the stuff that needs to last, just work, or be maintained into the future, I often find myself yearning to use Rust. The last obstacles are organization talent pool and Rust's ecosystem.

hu3 6y ago
As much as I'd love to use more performant APIs and programs that crash less on my daily basis, I don't see Rust even close to overtaking Python. For starters, memory management in Python is trivial while in Rust the developer has to learn a whole new set of skills in the form of borrowing, lifetimes and ownership. And for large projects where Python's limitations hamper team coordination, GC'd languages such as C# and Java offer much softer learning curve and a mature ecosystem. Even when performance is critical, projects get by just fine with using Java like in High Frequency Trading shops. Perhaps we shouldn't settle for Rust but refine the idea in a new, more ergonomic, language with focus on achieving the same but with lower cognitive load. Faster compilation times wouldn't hurt too.
- akiselev 6y ago
  I rarely use Rust for the performance or memory safety - it's a nice perk that allows for data structures and algorithms I wouldn't otherwise use but it's not the main reason I reach for it. I use Rust for its type system including traits, phantom marker types, affine types, sum types, exhaustive pattern matching, and so on. Once you get used to traits and composition over inheritance, it allows writing very reusable code that enforces a significant fraction of logic at the compiler level and scales much better with code and team size (modulo dependency hell, which I think is language agnostic but a work in progress in Rust). Rust's model of wrapping unsafe code in safe types also makes working with the world of C/C++ libraries much more pleasant once you get the hang of FFI. Plenty of other languages have these features but not quite in the right combination or their communities are too small and they haven't caught on yet. Rust is, in my opinion, at an organizational and technical sweet spot for large projects.

hu3 6y ago

As much as I'd love to use more performant APIs and programs that crash less on my daily basis, I don't see Rust even close to overtaking Python. For starters, memory management in Python is trivial while in Rust the developer has to learn a whole new set of skills in the form of borrowing, lifetimes and ownership. And for large projects where Python's limitations hamper team coordination, GC'd languages such as C# and Java offer much softer learning curve and a mature ecosystem. Even when performance is critical, projects get by just fine with using Java like in High Frequency Trading shops. Perhaps we shouldn't settle for Rust but refine the idea in a new, more ergonomic, language with focus on achieving the same but with lower cognitive load. Faster compilation times wouldn't hurt too.

akiselev 6y ago
I rarely use Rust for the performance or memory safety - it's a nice perk that allows for data structures and algorithms I wouldn't otherwise use but it's not the main reason I reach for it. I use Rust for its type system including traits, phantom marker types, affine types, sum types, exhaustive pattern matching, and so on. Once you get used to traits and composition over inheritance, it allows writing very reusable code that enforces a significant fraction of logic at the compiler level and scales much better with code and team size (modulo dependency hell, which I think is language agnostic but a work in progress in Rust). Rust's model of wrapping unsafe code in safe types also makes working with the world of C/C++ libraries much more pleasant once you get the hang of FFI. Plenty of other languages have these features but not quite in the right combination or their communities are too small and they haven't caught on yet. Rust is, in my opinion, at an organizational and technical sweet spot for large projects.