3 ms·

This is seriously cool, and I would use it frequently... if only there was a rust compiler in my computer. Since it is a somewhat "thin" wrapper around curl, a

This is seriously cool, and I would use it frequently... if only there was a rust compiler in my computer. Since it is a somewhat "thin" wrapper around curl, are there deep reasons for it to be written in Rust as opposed to, say, C or posix shell? Was learning Rust one of the main goals of this project? (not that there would be anything wrong with that, just asking).

ironmagma 5y ago
Is a Rust compiler really needed? They say there are precompiled binaries available and the package is on several package managers.
elsombrero 5y ago
In the installation page they just say to download the prebuilt binaries for your system, no need to compile it your self
ReactiveJelly 5y ago
https://hurl.dev/docs/installation.html https://hurl.dev/docs/installation.html > Precompiled binary is available at hurl-1.3.1-x86_64-linux.tar.gz https://github.com/Orange-OpenSource/hurl/releases/download/1.3.1/hurl-1.3.1-x86_64-linux.tar.gz https://github.com/Orange-OpenSource/hurl/releases/download/... > For Debian / Ubuntu, Hurl can be installed using a binary .deb file provided in each Hurl release. > hurl-bin package for Arch Linux and derived distros. > An installer is available at hurl-1.3.1-win64-installer.exe Just glancing at a few files, main.rs is already over 500 lines, which means shell would be impractical. C is a very difficult language to learn and to use correctly, so in the long-term there will be more Rust (and Go, and Python) programmers than C programmers. I think that is a good reason for projects to choose other languages. In fact, one might equally ask why it wasn't written in Python - Python is safer than C, far easier, and performance doesn't sound critical for an HTTP debugger meant to be used interactively by a human. We're probably already far past the point of "There are more competent Python programmers than competent C programmers."
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  >We're probably already far past the point of "There are more competent Python programmers than competent C programmers." Maybe this is the point where we need to start thinking about where we went wrong? I know that nobody cares about performance anymore, but if anybody is really thinking about Python as a replacement for C then that makes me sad.
  - DandyDev 5y ago
    I don't think the claim is that Python is a good replacement for C. But there are probably more (business) problems for which Python is the right tool to solve it then problems for which C is the right tool. C is also a lot harder than Python to learn. So for these reasons there are more Python programmers than C programmers. For some subset of problems for which C is a good tool, Rust is a good alternative, arguably with less foot guns. For some other problems that are solved with C, Golang is a good alternative. So in the end C is losing marketshare because of all these reasons.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    I think the success of Go and Rust show that lots of people care about performance. But it has to come second to correctness and safety/security, and C makes achieving those things very difficult compared to other languages.
- jicea 5y ago
  As a matter of fact, our first implementation of Hurl was written in Python. We switch to Rust because: - we're a 30 developper team with Linux, Windows and macOs computers. Installing Hurl with Python on Windows boxes was always a challenge and the single drop Rust binary has been a relief for us, - in a CI, we really want to run tests as fast as possible. The Rust version (the actual one) seems a lot faster that our Python prototype (certainly due to our lack of optimisation in our Python code)
  - Fiahil 5y ago
    Good choice, Rust is much better than python for concurrency, and that might be of interest in a future release :)
nicoburns 5y ago
Others have already commented that you don't need a rust compiler for this. But it's also worth noting that compiling Rust programs is typically much more straightforward than compiling C programs, even if you account for installing the Rust compiler as part of the process. The process would be: - Run the `curl | bash` command from https://rustup.rs/ https://rustup.rs/ to install rust via rustup - If you have a non-standard shell configuration that rustup can't detect, then add `~/.cargo/bin` to your PATH. - Clone the git repository containing the program you wish to compile - Run `cargo build --release` in the source directory. That's it, and that will work across all major platforms and almost all Rust programs.
- enriquto 5y ago
  rustup: unrecognized OS type: OpenBSD EDIT: googling around, it seems to be possible to build rust programs for openbsd, but it does not really work "out of the box". May try to install it this weekend.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Ah, OpenBSD looks like a bit of an exception in terms of platform support. FreeBSD and NetBSD both have Tier 2 (which is really the minimum level you want for a compiler host platform), but not OpenBSD.
fabricereix 5y ago
You don't need a Rust compiler as prebuilt binaries are available for your system. https://hurl.dev/docs/installation.html https://hurl.dev/docs/installation.html Relating to the choice of Rust, we think that it is the best language for this type of command-line tool. Performant like C/C++, but way safer to develop. And using native existing libs such as libcurl is possible.

ironmagma 5y ago

Is a Rust compiler really needed? They say there are precompiled binaries available and the package is on several package managers.

elsombrero 5y ago

In the installation page they just say to download the prebuilt binaries for your system, no need to compile it your self

ReactiveJelly 5y ago

https://hurl.dev/docs/installation.html https://hurl.dev/docs/installation.html > Precompiled binary is available at hurl-1.3.1-x86_64-linux.tar.gz https://github.com/Orange-OpenSource/hurl/releases/download/1.3.1/hurl-1.3.1-x86_64-linux.tar.gz https://github.com/Orange-OpenSource/hurl/releases/download/... > For Debian / Ubuntu, Hurl can be installed using a binary .deb file provided in each Hurl release. > hurl-bin package for Arch Linux and derived distros. > An installer is available at hurl-1.3.1-win64-installer.exe Just glancing at a few files, main.rs is already over 500 lines, which means shell would be impractical. C is a very difficult language to learn and to use correctly, so in the long-term there will be more Rust (and Go, and Python) programmers than C programmers. I think that is a good reason for projects to choose other languages. In fact, one might equally ask why it wasn't written in Python - Python is safer than C, far easier, and performance doesn't sound critical for an HTTP debugger meant to be used interactively by a human. We're probably already far past the point of "There are more competent Python programmers than competent C programmers."

lpcvoid 5y ago
>We're probably already far past the point of "There are more competent Python programmers than competent C programmers." Maybe this is the point where we need to start thinking about where we went wrong? I know that nobody cares about performance anymore, but if anybody is really thinking about Python as a replacement for C then that makes me sad.
- DandyDev 5y ago
  I don't think the claim is that Python is a good replacement for C. But there are probably more (business) problems for which Python is the right tool to solve it then problems for which C is the right tool. C is also a lot harder than Python to learn. So for these reasons there are more Python programmers than C programmers. For some subset of problems for which C is a good tool, Rust is a good alternative, arguably with less foot guns. For some other problems that are solved with C, Golang is a good alternative. So in the end C is losing marketshare because of all these reasons.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  I think the success of Go and Rust show that lots of people care about performance. But it has to come second to correctness and safety/security, and C makes achieving those things very difficult compared to other languages.
jicea 5y ago
As a matter of fact, our first implementation of Hurl was written in Python. We switch to Rust because: - we're a 30 developper team with Linux, Windows and macOs computers. Installing Hurl with Python on Windows boxes was always a challenge and the single drop Rust binary has been a relief for us, - in a CI, we really want to run tests as fast as possible. The Rust version (the actual one) seems a lot faster that our Python prototype (certainly due to our lack of optimisation in our Python code)
- Fiahil 5y ago
  Good choice, Rust is much better than python for concurrency, and that might be of interest in a future release :)

nicoburns 5y ago

Others have already commented that you don't need a rust compiler for this. But it's also worth noting that compiling Rust programs is typically much more straightforward than compiling C programs, even if you account for installing the Rust compiler as part of the process. The process would be: - Run the `curl | bash` command from https://rustup.rs/ https://rustup.rs/ to install rust via rustup - If you have a non-standard shell configuration that rustup can't detect, then add `~/.cargo/bin` to your PATH. - Clone the git repository containing the program you wish to compile - Run `cargo build --release` in the source directory. That's it, and that will work across all major platforms and almost all Rust programs.

enriquto 5y ago
rustup: unrecognized OS type: OpenBSD EDIT: googling around, it seems to be possible to build rust programs for openbsd, but it does not really work "out of the box". May try to install it this weekend.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Ah, OpenBSD looks like a bit of an exception in terms of platform support. FreeBSD and NetBSD both have Tier 2 (which is really the minimum level you want for a compiler host platform), but not OpenBSD.

fabricereix 5y ago

You don't need a Rust compiler as prebuilt binaries are available for your system. https://hurl.dev/docs/installation.html https://hurl.dev/docs/installation.html Relating to the choice of Rust, we think that it is the best language for this type of command-line tool. Performant like C/C++, but way safer to develop. And using native existing libs such as libcurl is possible.