4 ms·

I’m pretty sure that’s the point. But since it’s trendy people try to apply it to everything.

hu3 5y ago
Some go as far as saying that "Rust is pretty accessible to developers coming from scripting languages (JavaScript, Python, etc)." [1]. Meanwhile in the real world: "I find myself hanging for long periods of time on borrow checker errors. One of the errors has stopped my progress dead for a week now, I swear it worked a week ago and then Rust decided that a borrow I was doing was no good." [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26929012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26929012 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807574
- jhugo 5y ago
  The borrow checker is deterministic, so the commenter in [2] is mistaken about it “deciding” that a previously-OK borrow was suddenly no good. I do recall the steep learning curve and the frustrations with the borrow checker, but I haven’t had it impede me at all in probably two years now and I’m writing Rust most of the day every day. Also, most of the knowledge I gained by learning to work with it is general knowledge that made me a better programmer, not specific knowledge of how to “work around” the borrow checker.
cytzol 5y ago
> But since it’s trendy people try to apply it to everything. When people do things you don't understand, don't just say that they're just doing it because it's fashionable. Sure, they might be — or they have their own reasons. I use Rust in a couple of places outside of its original "systems programming" niche, where, yeah, I don't really need to track every allocation, I don't care about GC pauses, I don't need to ship one single binary, and the overhead of a runtime wouldn't bother me. Things like Web servers for side projects, or small scripts to do a task I need to automate. However, I found that: • The effort it took to bring Rust out of its niche, and the time it took to learn the domain-specific libraries for my use cases (Rocket for Web stuff; duct for shell script stuff) was less than I thought; • The amount of knowledge I needed to retain to use a programming language effectively — the components of its standard library, common third-party helper libraries, how to navigate the documentation, how to fix mistakes, how to avoid traps and pitfalls, how to structure your program, how to handle differences between language versions — was much larger than I thought! So I stick with Rust for non-systems tasks because the benefits outweigh the detriments for me. (Granted, I was only able to do this because I already knew my way around the language and the borrow checker; if you already know, say, Python, you can make this exact same argument in reverse. But then you need to know how to wield Python for low-level programming as well as high-level programming.) I read an article a few years ago called Java for Everything[1] (which was discussed here on HN[2]) that makes the same point, only with Java. If I had to pick an "everything language", I don't think it would be 2014-era Java, but the article did sell me on the benefits of having an "everything language" in the first place, and I feel the same benefits apply here with Rust. [1]: https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/java-for-everything.html https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/java-for-everythin... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8677556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8677556

hu3 5y ago

Some go as far as saying that "Rust is pretty accessible to developers coming from scripting languages (JavaScript, Python, etc)." [1]. Meanwhile in the real world: "I find myself hanging for long periods of time on borrow checker errors. One of the errors has stopped my progress dead for a week now, I swear it worked a week ago and then Rust decided that a borrow I was doing was no good." [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26929012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26929012 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807574

jhugo 5y ago
The borrow checker is deterministic, so the commenter in [2] is mistaken about it “deciding” that a previously-OK borrow was suddenly no good. I do recall the steep learning curve and the frustrations with the borrow checker, but I haven’t had it impede me at all in probably two years now and I’m writing Rust most of the day every day. Also, most of the knowledge I gained by learning to work with it is general knowledge that made me a better programmer, not specific knowledge of how to “work around” the borrow checker.

cytzol 5y ago

> But since it’s trendy people try to apply it to everything. When people do things you don't understand, don't just say that they're just doing it because it's fashionable. Sure, they might be — or they have their own reasons. I use Rust in a couple of places outside of its original "systems programming" niche, where, yeah, I don't really need to track every allocation, I don't care about GC pauses, I don't need to ship one single binary, and the overhead of a runtime wouldn't bother me. Things like Web servers for side projects, or small scripts to do a task I need to automate. However, I found that: • The effort it took to bring Rust out of its niche, and the time it took to learn the domain-specific libraries for my use cases (Rocket for Web stuff; duct for shell script stuff) was less than I thought; • The amount of knowledge I needed to retain to use a programming language effectively — the components of its standard library, common third-party helper libraries, how to navigate the documentation, how to fix mistakes, how to avoid traps and pitfalls, how to structure your program, how to handle differences between language versions — was much larger than I thought! So I stick with Rust for non-systems tasks because the benefits outweigh the detriments for me. (Granted, I was only able to do this because I already knew my way around the language and the borrow checker; if you already know, say, Python, you can make this exact same argument in reverse. But then you need to know how to wield Python for low-level programming as well as high-level programming.) I read an article a few years ago called Java for Everything[1] (which was discussed here on HN[2]) that makes the same point, only with Java. If I had to pick an "everything language", I don't think it would be 2014-era Java, but the article did sell me on the benefits of having an "everything language" in the first place, and I feel the same benefits apply here with Rust. [1]: https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/java-for-everything.html https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/java-for-everythin... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8677556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8677556