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> it needs to have at least a killer app with an ecosystem around it Give it 20 years and I can see it doing to Python what Python did to R.
by mr_toad 6y ago
> it needs to have at least a killer app with an ecosystem around it
Give it 20 years and I can see it doing to Python what Python did to R.
- abenga 6y agoI can't absolutely say that this won't happen, but given Rust's focus on writing "correct" code, e.g. the borrow checker, etc, it's really unlikely given that one of the largest areas where Python and R shine is in exploratory data analysis. I can't imagine trying to play around with unstructured exploration of a data set in Rust's (totally reasonable) syntactic verbosity, correctness straitjackets, and compilation time.
- mr_toad 6y agoSome of that complexity can be abstracted away with a good framework. I think it’s almost inevitable that a Pandas-like framework will eventually emerge for Rust (probably based on Arrow). It’s also quite possible that Rust could underpin a product like Spark, with a scripting language on top. The compilation time is a hurdle, but it’s not as if compiled languages are absent in numerical computing, for example Fortran.
- pjmlp 6y agoOn lifesciences, R still wipes the floor to Python.
- johnnycerberus 6y agoMoreover, Logo-based and Lisp programming environments are more popular than other people think. Netlogo is heavily used in social sciences. Hard to think that even Python and R can displace those since they are so well suited for that kind of programming (agent manipulation).