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Ask HN: Why does it seem like Rust is always on the front page?

10 points by stanrivers 6y ago

colesantiago 6y ago
because people like rust.
pestatije 6y ago
It's been on Twitch since 2013, but now it can be streamed it's become all the rage.
metreo 6y ago
it has a community doing a lot of innovation in areas people find interesting
dcminter 6y ago
I think Rust tickles a certain kind of aesthetic. There's a great essay[0] by Steve Yegge that talks about a certain spectrum of philosophy amongst developers with those liking lots of compile-time validation at one end and the free-and-easy dynamic runtime-checked-if-at-all ones at the other. Those of us at the "conservative" end of this spectrum see great alignment between what the rust language offers, what the rust language development process promises, and what we're seeking. Seeing that, there's also the tantalizing prospect of like-minded peers amongst the enthusiasts for it. It's also just kind of neat from a technical point of view that it's possible to make the sorts of rigorous promises at compile time that rust offers. Understanding the borrow-checker rules is a famously tricky challenge for newcomers to the language, which perhaps nerd-snipes[1] some of us. Because it's a systems programming language (writing an OS directly in Rust is perfectly possible [2]) it has some allure as a "grown up" language. The rust language development community is famously welcoming with good quality documentation and the IDE support is getting there. So it's approachable. That helps for sure. Finally there's unarguably some evangelical fanboy-ism going on that no doubt boosts the numbers a bit on top of all that. Disclaimer: I'm not a rust developer, but I'm definitely attracted by what it has to offer :) --- [0] Alas it was posted on Google+ so the original is no longer up, but there are a variety of mirrors of it out there, e.g. https://gist.github.com/cornchz/3313150 https://gist.github.com/cornchz/3313150 - see also meta-discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365255 [1] https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ [2] https://www.redox-os.org/ https://www.redox-os.org/
- twoquestions 6y ago
  I've been looking for that essay for years, but apparently my google-fu is weak. Thanks for posting it!
- stanrivers 6y ago
  This is super helpful and I appreciate you writing it all out. Finance guy here, who invests in the VC space, so like to at least understand some of what is going on!
FrozenVoid 6y ago
Its perhaps the only modern high-level language(on the level of Haskell, they're adding GATs now https://www.fpcomplete.com/blog/monads-gats-nightly-rust/ https://www.fpcomplete.com/blog/monads-gats-nightly-rust/ ) with C++-level performance. Usually the trade-off with such languages is abstractions adding extra layers(Garbage collection/Reference counting, Continuations, Lazy eval) that Rust avoids with compile-time pointer analysis(the borrow checker). Its not really something i like aesthetically(syntactic complexity), but its winning benchmarks and there serious libraries written in it.
probinso 6y ago
People keep leaving it in the rain
rvz 6y ago
Because it's a very popular game.

10 points by stanrivers 6y ago

colesantiago 6y ago

because people like rust.

pestatije 6y ago

It's been on Twitch since 2013, but now it can be streamed it's become all the rage.

metreo 6y ago

it has a community doing a lot of innovation in areas people find interesting

dcminter 6y ago

I think Rust tickles a certain kind of aesthetic. There's a great essay[0] by Steve Yegge that talks about a certain spectrum of philosophy amongst developers with those liking lots of compile-time validation at one end and the free-and-easy dynamic runtime-checked-if-at-all ones at the other. Those of us at the "conservative" end of this spectrum see great alignment between what the rust language offers, what the rust language development process promises, and what we're seeking. Seeing that, there's also the tantalizing prospect of like-minded peers amongst the enthusiasts for it. It's also just kind of neat from a technical point of view that it's possible to make the sorts of rigorous promises at compile time that rust offers. Understanding the borrow-checker rules is a famously tricky challenge for newcomers to the language, which perhaps nerd-snipes[1] some of us. Because it's a systems programming language (writing an OS directly in Rust is perfectly possible [2]) it has some allure as a "grown up" language. The rust language development community is famously welcoming with good quality documentation and the IDE support is getting there. So it's approachable. That helps for sure. Finally there's unarguably some evangelical fanboy-ism going on that no doubt boosts the numbers a bit on top of all that. Disclaimer: I'm not a rust developer, but I'm definitely attracted by what it has to offer :) --- [0] Alas it was posted on Google+ so the original is no longer up, but there are a variety of mirrors of it out there, e.g. https://gist.github.com/cornchz/3313150 https://gist.github.com/cornchz/3313150 - see also meta-discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365255 [1] https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ [2] https://www.redox-os.org/ https://www.redox-os.org/

twoquestions 6y ago
I've been looking for that essay for years, but apparently my google-fu is weak. Thanks for posting it!
stanrivers 6y ago
This is super helpful and I appreciate you writing it all out. Finance guy here, who invests in the VC space, so like to at least understand some of what is going on!

FrozenVoid 6y ago

Its perhaps the only modern high-level language(on the level of Haskell, they're adding GATs now https://www.fpcomplete.com/blog/monads-gats-nightly-rust/ https://www.fpcomplete.com/blog/monads-gats-nightly-rust/ ) with C++-level performance. Usually the trade-off with such languages is abstractions adding extra layers(Garbage collection/Reference counting, Continuations, Lazy eval) that Rust avoids with compile-time pointer analysis(the borrow checker). Its not really something i like aesthetically(syntactic complexity), but its winning benchmarks and there serious libraries written in it.

probinso 6y ago

People keep leaving it in the rain

rvz 6y ago

Because it's a very popular game.