5 ms·

I wonder if Rust has enough momentum to sustain itself now.

by outworlder 6y ago

artursapek 6y ago
I expect a bigger corp with a sustainable business model will scoop it up. Rust is too promising to die at this point.
- eloff 6y ago
  I hope so, I bet on Rust for my latest venture. I'd be so sad to have to rewrite it in C++ down the road.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Probably start now. C++20 is a much more fun language than C++11 was, which was itself overwhelmingly more fun than C++98 or C. C++23 and C++26 will continue the trend. If you are not constrained to shoehorn yourself into a C or C++98 environment, all the memory-safety worries Rust was supposed to help with fall away.
- darthrupert 6y ago
  Is it though? Most of it seems to be hype. It’s great that programming languages get researched and improved, but do they actually improve? How is improvement measured?
  - dgb23 6y ago
    > How is improvement measured? This is a good question that like to get answered too. It is reasonable to assume[0] that the language can keep its promises. However I look forward to seeing data on this in the future. [0] https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/22/why-rust-for-safe-systems-programming/ https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/22/why-rust-for-safe...
    - darthrupert 6y ago
      I've studied and followed Rust since before 1.0. I have no doubt that it lives up to its technical promises. What I'm more skeptical about is whether living up to those promises yields a tangible benefit. By skeptical I don't mean to imply that using Rust doesn't yield benefits, just that I would like the PL research world to be in a place where questions like this can be solved properly.
  - foota 6y ago
    I don't think calling it mostly hype is anywhere near reasonable. It's a mature language with a large ecosystem in use by a variety of companies.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      In ten years it will be mature, if anyone still uses it. If not, it will be because people who like Rust today are off chasing some new hotness. Whatever the direct technical impact of the layoffs, the language's credibility has taken a huge blow. Its future was already uncertain, and is, being honest with ourselves, substantially moreso now. There is a lot to like about Rust. I hope something survives. A sequel--Dust?--could keep its strengths but focus at the outset on fast builds and better visibility into dependencies, to avoid NPM disease. There must be lots of ideas that it seemed too late for. Maybe make it relatively easy to import old Rust code, to help get jumpstarted? Rust's real reason to exist, to displace C, was not working, and may have been doomed from the outset. Rust has been taking users from Java, Go, and Python; and some C++, in places where coding has been hamstrung by archaic "style" restrictions. But very few C coders have moved. That may be just because any who might have jumped already had. (Some of those might have come over from a pause at Go.) Rust is a far, far better language than Java and Go. It never had a chance against C++, which picks up more new users every single week than the total who have ever used Rust. If Rust or its sequel could give people on Java and Go a language with a future, that would be a seriously worthwhile achievement. Making a borrow checker less strident would aid adoption; so you always know whether your code and each dependency are "clean", without being prevented from getting work done. The recent experience with that very fast GUI library with a few too many "unsafe" bits made a very deep impression. Nobody wants that experience, especially starting out. Code that is not borrow-clean would get clean soon enough if it is used; and, frankly, dead code never needs to be clean.
      - foota 6y ago
        What grounds do you have for saying it's not a mature language? It's more than 10 years old. Subjectively I would feel as confident in safety and feature set as any other mainstream programming language. I also strongly disagree that Rust has any sort of an uncertain future. It appears to be a well run and stable project. Regularly putting out releases from a variety of contributors.
  - artursapek 6y ago
    It doesn't sound like you've learned and used it.
rglullis 6y ago
Wasn't Microsoft hinting that it was going to adopt Rust for some projects?
- dgb23 6y ago
  Yes, and they apparently did.
- Arnavion 6y ago
  Microsoft has been openly using Rust since 2018. No hinting required.
- zelly 6y ago
  Microsoft has Rust bindings for WinRT and I think some internal tools at Azure. But Microsoft has a long history of creating programming languages for every niche, so they'll probably make one in the tradition of Rust. https://github.com/microsoft/verona https://github.com/microsoft/verona
aschampion 6y ago
Rust has plenty of momentum and non-Mozilla core team members and contributors, and has been in the process of finding or creating a foundation to organize under for some time. Of course this will slow the pace of development because so many talented and passionate people will have to move on, but it won't kill Rust.
tashoecraft 6y ago
I believe the high majority of the Rust core developers did not work at Mozilla. It's been moved to the community for awhile now.
jayflux 6y ago
"sustain" yes. Rust has been in a position for a while to outlive Mozilla's involvement. It is developed independently and has sponsors and contributors from other companies. https://www.rust-lang.org/sponsors https://www.rust-lang.org/sponsors That being said, I do think this will slow progress (even if for a short period), many of the engineers laid off were on the Rust core team and contributed a lot of commits and knowledge. Things like the Cranelift backend to speed up compilation for debug builds relied on the wasmtime team who have lost people. So is Rust going anywhere? No, I'm not even worried about that. However new features and fixes might take longer than expected.
Rochus 6y ago
It's core benefit proposition - improved memory safety - is or has been adopted in other languages like C++ or Ada (or even D for those who care). The legitimate question therefore arises as to whether the other features available in Rust justify an additional programming language. I'm rather conservative and think it's better to improve the existing sites than to open a new one. Time will tell.

I wonder if Rust has enough momentum to sustain itself now.

artursapek 6y ago

I expect a bigger corp with a sustainable business model will scoop it up. Rust is too promising to die at this point.

eloff 6y ago
I hope so, I bet on Rust for my latest venture. I'd be so sad to have to rewrite it in C++ down the road.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Probably start now. C++20 is a much more fun language than C++11 was, which was itself overwhelmingly more fun than C++98 or C. C++23 and C++26 will continue the trend. If you are not constrained to shoehorn yourself into a C or C++98 environment, all the memory-safety worries Rust was supposed to help with fall away.
darthrupert 6y ago
Is it though? Most of it seems to be hype. It’s great that programming languages get researched and improved, but do they actually improve? How is improvement measured?
- dgb23 6y ago
  > How is improvement measured? This is a good question that like to get answered too. It is reasonable to assume[0] that the language can keep its promises. However I look forward to seeing data on this in the future. [0] https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/22/why-rust-for-safe-systems-programming/ https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/22/why-rust-for-safe...
  - darthrupert 6y ago
    I've studied and followed Rust since before 1.0. I have no doubt that it lives up to its technical promises. What I'm more skeptical about is whether living up to those promises yields a tangible benefit. By skeptical I don't mean to imply that using Rust doesn't yield benefits, just that I would like the PL research world to be in a place where questions like this can be solved properly.
- foota 6y ago
  I don't think calling it mostly hype is anywhere near reasonable. It's a mature language with a large ecosystem in use by a variety of companies.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    In ten years it will be mature, if anyone still uses it. If not, it will be because people who like Rust today are off chasing some new hotness. Whatever the direct technical impact of the layoffs, the language's credibility has taken a huge blow. Its future was already uncertain, and is, being honest with ourselves, substantially moreso now. There is a lot to like about Rust. I hope something survives. A sequel--Dust?--could keep its strengths but focus at the outset on fast builds and better visibility into dependencies, to avoid NPM disease. There must be lots of ideas that it seemed too late for. Maybe make it relatively easy to import old Rust code, to help get jumpstarted? Rust's real reason to exist, to displace C, was not working, and may have been doomed from the outset. Rust has been taking users from Java, Go, and Python; and some C++, in places where coding has been hamstrung by archaic "style" restrictions. But very few C coders have moved. That may be just because any who might have jumped already had. (Some of those might have come over from a pause at Go.) Rust is a far, far better language than Java and Go. It never had a chance against C++, which picks up more new users every single week than the total who have ever used Rust. If Rust or its sequel could give people on Java and Go a language with a future, that would be a seriously worthwhile achievement. Making a borrow checker less strident would aid adoption; so you always know whether your code and each dependency are "clean", without being prevented from getting work done. The recent experience with that very fast GUI library with a few too many "unsafe" bits made a very deep impression. Nobody wants that experience, especially starting out. Code that is not borrow-clean would get clean soon enough if it is used; and, frankly, dead code never needs to be clean.
    - foota 6y ago
      What grounds do you have for saying it's not a mature language? It's more than 10 years old. Subjectively I would feel as confident in safety and feature set as any other mainstream programming language. I also strongly disagree that Rust has any sort of an uncertain future. It appears to be a well run and stable project. Regularly putting out releases from a variety of contributors.
- artursapek 6y ago
  It doesn't sound like you've learned and used it.

rglullis 6y ago

Wasn't Microsoft hinting that it was going to adopt Rust for some projects?

dgb23 6y ago
Yes, and they apparently did.
Arnavion 6y ago
Microsoft has been openly using Rust since 2018. No hinting required.
zelly 6y ago
Microsoft has Rust bindings for WinRT and I think some internal tools at Azure. But Microsoft has a long history of creating programming languages for every niche, so they'll probably make one in the tradition of Rust. https://github.com/microsoft/verona https://github.com/microsoft/verona

aschampion 6y ago

Rust has plenty of momentum and non-Mozilla core team members and contributors, and has been in the process of finding or creating a foundation to organize under for some time. Of course this will slow the pace of development because so many talented and passionate people will have to move on, but it won't kill Rust.

tashoecraft 6y ago

I believe the high majority of the Rust core developers did not work at Mozilla. It's been moved to the community for awhile now.

jayflux 6y ago

"sustain" yes. Rust has been in a position for a while to outlive Mozilla's involvement. It is developed independently and has sponsors and contributors from other companies. https://www.rust-lang.org/sponsors https://www.rust-lang.org/sponsors That being said, I do think this will slow progress (even if for a short period), many of the engineers laid off were on the Rust core team and contributed a lot of commits and knowledge. Things like the Cranelift backend to speed up compilation for debug builds relied on the wasmtime team who have lost people. So is Rust going anywhere? No, I'm not even worried about that. However new features and fixes might take longer than expected.

Rochus 6y ago

It's core benefit proposition - improved memory safety - is or has been adopted in other languages like C++ or Ada (or even D for those who care). The legitimate question therefore arises as to whether the other features available in Rust justify an additional programming language. I'm rather conservative and think it's better to improve the existing sites than to open a new one. Time will tell.