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> The first rule you should remember when reading HN is the real world is not HN. Can you explain what you mean by that?

crazy_horse 5y ago
How often do you see Rust mentioned here? Rust's actual use in the industry is minimal. Yes, it's growing, but it's relatively unknown. The small academic team I was on wrote a stats app package using Mithril. Nobody's using mithril, it's hardly discussed here, even though the author posts often. I truly believe that mithril is better than React or Vue people just don't know about it, it's not part of the hype cycle. React is FB and was one of the first and Vue is designed in a very community-centric way. Had we done that project today, we'd probably pick one of those because they are a lot better on resumes. HN is full of people that post dozens of comments a day. You have to ask yourself what the people who don't need to talk about it all the time are using.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Rust has a huge exposure in the programming community. I may not know how to write it, but I sure know what it is. It's not just limited to HN in awareness.
  - crazy_horse 5y ago
    You say that but my exposure to Rust was through HN. That same team I'd sit down and chat with the CS PhD majors that were doing machine learning. It genuinely surprised me when a brilliant student said he'd never heard of Rust. TIOBE is a garbage metric, but Rust's numbers are paltry there. It's key to some really important projects, but it still isn't a widely-used language.
    - morty_s 5y ago
      Was reading through some C++ at work the other day and was like “why is this reference.. assigned to… copy constructor?… oh, yeah…” IMO it’s better (explicit) to see a call to `.clone()`, but maybe this is because I’m not up to my elbows in C++ everyday. Either way, I think Rust will continue to grow in popularity (C as well).
  - kongin 5y ago
    >Rust has a huge exposure in the programming community. And it's used exactly nowhere. Can you name one project that is rust based and isn't part of the rust toolchain?
    - haOk 5y ago
      It isn’t “Rust based” but a path to writing Linux kernel code in Rust is being worked out: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/let-the-linux-kernel-rust/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/let-the-linux-kernel-ru... Save you some reading; a path to writing drivers and possibly replacing code that is hard to make work safely in C is where the conversation is right now.
    - lhorie 5y ago
      IIRC some of the HTTP/2 or 3 server-side stack (I forget which) in Cloudflare is implemented in Rust. Parts of Firefox are implemented in Rust. Swc is a JS bundler written in Rust. I agree it's not a super in-demand skill as far as job postings go, but it's not exactly completely unused either.
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      Discord: https://blog.discord.com/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to-rust-a190bbca2b1f https://blog.discord.com/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to...
    - ibraheemdev 5y ago
      AWS lambda is built on Firecracker MicroVMs, written completely in Rust. Fly.io uses it as well.
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      Redox, quite a few utilities that replace classic Unix ones with something that has a better interface (ls, and I think something that replaced grep), probably more.
      - mattblayac 5y ago
        Ripgrep is awesome : https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep Some others : https://lib.rs/command-line-utilities https://lib.rs/command-line-utilities
- lhorie 5y ago
  > the author posts often. Oh hey, that's me :) I'm a big believer in the idea of mastering fundamentals, and even explicitly mention in the mithril.js framework comparison page[0] that you can build production quality stuff with any framework (including of course mithril.js) There's this pervasive notion with newer tech that new things must be objectively superior than old stuff, but the way I see is that everything comes with trade-offs, e.g. Rust may indeed be safer than C, but conversely it's also been characterized as difficult to learn/keep up with, and IIRC has a less broad range of target architectures. I think, however, that reading resources like the "The descent to C"[1] article that's up on front page can help someone getting into C, but also Rust, and even someone who wants to gain some insight about how Javascript works under the hood, precisely because it's a resource more about fundamentals than C per se. Similarly, there are fundamental patterns that appear over and over in competing technologies (e.g. routing in JS frameworks, or DI in object oriented systems), and this goes for even the design of said patterns (e.g. principles of encapsulation, composition and orthogonality) I've even had success applying the search of fundamentals to other disciplines. Bruce Lee famously said "fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times". But one hidden insight is that in martial arts "it's all about the hips": once you "get" the insight about the role of hip rotation, all striking techniques improve by leaps and bounds. Many such "fundamental" insights exist, from insights about balance to insights about tells. In music playing, one universal insight is that effortlessness is quite literally a matter of muscle relaxation (beginners often get stuck in a rut because they tense up unconsciously). Etc. It's fun looking for fundamental insights. [0] https://mithril.js.org/framework-comparison.html https://mithril.js.org/framework-comparison.html [1] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/cdescent/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/cdescent/
  - maxFlow 5y ago
    Nice write up. Mastery of first principles is the only way out.
- fsociety 5y ago
  Rust is likely used more in industry than you think, you just have to look for it.
foobar33333 5y ago
HN would have you believe the whole frontend scene is totally replaced every month. At our company we started using React about 3 years ago and React is still the industry standard today and likely will be 3 years in the future.

crazy_horse 5y ago

How often do you see Rust mentioned here? Rust's actual use in the industry is minimal. Yes, it's growing, but it's relatively unknown. The small academic team I was on wrote a stats app package using Mithril. Nobody's using mithril, it's hardly discussed here, even though the author posts often. I truly believe that mithril is better than React or Vue people just don't know about it, it's not part of the hype cycle. React is FB and was one of the first and Vue is designed in a very community-centric way. Had we done that project today, we'd probably pick one of those because they are a lot better on resumes. HN is full of people that post dozens of comments a day. You have to ask yourself what the people who don't need to talk about it all the time are using.

selfhoster11 5y ago
Rust has a huge exposure in the programming community. I may not know how to write it, but I sure know what it is. It's not just limited to HN in awareness.
- crazy_horse 5y ago
  You say that but my exposure to Rust was through HN. That same team I'd sit down and chat with the CS PhD majors that were doing machine learning. It genuinely surprised me when a brilliant student said he'd never heard of Rust. TIOBE is a garbage metric, but Rust's numbers are paltry there. It's key to some really important projects, but it still isn't a widely-used language.
  - morty_s 5y ago
    Was reading through some C++ at work the other day and was like “why is this reference.. assigned to… copy constructor?… oh, yeah…” IMO it’s better (explicit) to see a call to `.clone()`, but maybe this is because I’m not up to my elbows in C++ everyday. Either way, I think Rust will continue to grow in popularity (C as well).
- kongin 5y ago
  >Rust has a huge exposure in the programming community. And it's used exactly nowhere. Can you name one project that is rust based and isn't part of the rust toolchain?
  - haOk 5y ago
    It isn’t “Rust based” but a path to writing Linux kernel code in Rust is being worked out: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/let-the-linux-kernel-rust/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/let-the-linux-kernel-ru... Save you some reading; a path to writing drivers and possibly replacing code that is hard to make work safely in C is where the conversation is right now.
  - lhorie 5y ago
    IIRC some of the HTTP/2 or 3 server-side stack (I forget which) in Cloudflare is implemented in Rust. Parts of Firefox are implemented in Rust. Swc is a JS bundler written in Rust. I agree it's not a super in-demand skill as far as job postings go, but it's not exactly completely unused either.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    Discord: https://blog.discord.com/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to-rust-a190bbca2b1f https://blog.discord.com/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to...
  - ibraheemdev 5y ago
    AWS lambda is built on Firecracker MicroVMs, written completely in Rust. Fly.io uses it as well.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Redox, quite a few utilities that replace classic Unix ones with something that has a better interface (ls, and I think something that replaced grep), probably more.
    - mattblayac 5y ago
      Ripgrep is awesome : https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep Some others : https://lib.rs/command-line-utilities https://lib.rs/command-line-utilities
lhorie 5y ago
> the author posts often. Oh hey, that's me :) I'm a big believer in the idea of mastering fundamentals, and even explicitly mention in the mithril.js framework comparison page[0] that you can build production quality stuff with any framework (including of course mithril.js) There's this pervasive notion with newer tech that new things must be objectively superior than old stuff, but the way I see is that everything comes with trade-offs, e.g. Rust may indeed be safer than C, but conversely it's also been characterized as difficult to learn/keep up with, and IIRC has a less broad range of target architectures. I think, however, that reading resources like the "The descent to C"[1] article that's up on front page can help someone getting into C, but also Rust, and even someone who wants to gain some insight about how Javascript works under the hood, precisely because it's a resource more about fundamentals than C per se. Similarly, there are fundamental patterns that appear over and over in competing technologies (e.g. routing in JS frameworks, or DI in object oriented systems), and this goes for even the design of said patterns (e.g. principles of encapsulation, composition and orthogonality) I've even had success applying the search of fundamentals to other disciplines. Bruce Lee famously said "fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times". But one hidden insight is that in martial arts "it's all about the hips": once you "get" the insight about the role of hip rotation, all striking techniques improve by leaps and bounds. Many such "fundamental" insights exist, from insights about balance to insights about tells. In music playing, one universal insight is that effortlessness is quite literally a matter of muscle relaxation (beginners often get stuck in a rut because they tense up unconsciously). Etc. It's fun looking for fundamental insights. [0] https://mithril.js.org/framework-comparison.html https://mithril.js.org/framework-comparison.html [1] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/cdescent/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/cdescent/
- maxFlow 5y ago
  Nice write up. Mastery of first principles is the only way out.
fsociety 5y ago
Rust is likely used more in industry than you think, you just have to look for it.

foobar33333 5y ago

HN would have you believe the whole frontend scene is totally replaced every month. At our company we started using React about 3 years ago and React is still the industry standard today and likely will be 3 years in the future.