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I shouldn't be surprised to see you defending Rust here :) I do see a lot of similarities between Rust and Python. I don't agree that it's better than Python f

by eloff 6y ago

I shouldn't be surprised to see you defending Rust here :) I do see a lot of similarities between Rust and Python. I don't agree that it's better than Python for most short scripting tasks - but I will grant your point that it's not completely ridiculous either, not by a long shot.

steveklabnik 6y ago
Honestly, I am surprised; if you go read my old Hacker News comments, you'll see me saying that I don't think Rust will ever make sense for the backend of websites. I have been pleasantly surprised as things have developed.
- eloff 6y ago
  I don't have anywhere near your level of experience with Rust. But yeah that's been surprising to me too. I still think I'd rank it behind Go and Python for a typical website backend - but it depends on the project and the team. The more people involved, the more things the type system will save you from, and the more you benefit from being able to build powerful abstractions - which offsets the relatively higher "tax" on productivity with it. Rust is one of the better choices for backend web development today, a sentence I also find surprising just to write. Honestly, probably the biggest thing holding it back for that use case is not the language itself but lack of adoption. It's tougher to hire for, and has a less mature ecosystem. I feel the momentum is there and that will change over the next 5 years or so.
  - steveklabnik 6y ago
    Yep, I would agree with all of this. Some Oxide folks have talked about our experiences with Rust as web backend stuff, it's linked in the post but https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/the-automated-cio/ https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/the-automated-cio/ and https://twitter.com/ahl/status/1308421852931461126 https://twitter.com/ahl/status/1308421852931461126 We had to build a bunch of stuff because as you say, the ecosystem isn't super mature at times.

by eloff 6y ago

steveklabnik 6y ago

Honestly, I am surprised; if you go read my old Hacker News comments, you'll see me saying that I don't think Rust will ever make sense for the backend of websites. I have been pleasantly surprised as things have developed.

eloff 6y ago
I don't have anywhere near your level of experience with Rust. But yeah that's been surprising to me too. I still think I'd rank it behind Go and Python for a typical website backend - but it depends on the project and the team. The more people involved, the more things the type system will save you from, and the more you benefit from being able to build powerful abstractions - which offsets the relatively higher "tax" on productivity with it. Rust is one of the better choices for backend web development today, a sentence I also find surprising just to write. Honestly, probably the biggest thing holding it back for that use case is not the language itself but lack of adoption. It's tougher to hire for, and has a less mature ecosystem. I feel the momentum is there and that will change over the next 5 years or so.
- steveklabnik 6y ago
  Yep, I would agree with all of this. Some Oxide folks have talked about our experiences with Rust as web backend stuff, it's linked in the post but https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/the-automated-cio/ https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/the-automated-cio/ and https://twitter.com/ahl/status/1308421852931461126 https://twitter.com/ahl/status/1308421852931461126 We had to build a bunch of stuff because as you say, the ecosystem isn't super mature at times.