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The most interesting thing about the go vs rust debate is that it happened. In hindsight it seems abundantly clear that they aim for entirely different fields w

by usrusr 4y ago

The most interesting thing about the go vs rust debate is that it happened. In hindsight it seems abundantly clear that they aim for entirely different fields with negligible overlap, almost as if you'd lump together tennis and golf because they are both ball games with a somewhat upperclass bias ("how different can they be? And I hear polo is the same but with horses!"). But back then? Yeah, I was kind of expecting one of them to "win".

kjksf 4y ago
Rust and Go are both general purpose languages. They overlap way more than they don't i.e. there is way more software that you can write in both languages than software that you can write in only one of them. The "best language for the job" is mostly a myth. The choice of language is mostly dictated by what you cannot do, rather than what you can do. Can I use Go or Java to program a micro-controller with 128 kB of RAM? Not really (at least no using the official, non-crippled implementation) because even "hello world" in those languages exceeds that 128 kB limit. If I'm writing a cmd-line app that I want to ship as a single binary for Windows and Mac and Linux, I'm not using Python. Technically it's possible but very few are doing it while Go gives me out of the box multi-platform compilation. The reality is that the majority of software written today falls into one of those categories: * web frontend, running in the browser, by necessity written in JavaScript or something that transpiles to JavaScript. Both Go and Rust are out of this game * web backend and similar server software: both Rust and Go compete for that * command line apps : both Rust and Go compete for that * games : AAA games are pretty much C++, Go and Rust are out (although Rust could, in principle, work) So in most cases both Rust and Go are unsuitable for the task or they compete for the task.
- devrimbaris 4y ago
  There you have TinyGO for embedded and wasm stuff, but it is not the same as using the same language and tooling everywhere like Rust. I like Go and a fan of Rust but for Rust,some standard libraries lagging like async and having alternatives to choose from makes me uneasy about Rust in general (tokia vs async libs e.g).i am just a beginner in Rust so i might be wrong. The game engines in Rust are way cool btw.
- jfim 4y ago
  > Can I use Go or Java to program a micro-controller with 128 kB of RAM? Not really (at least no using the official, non-crippled implementation) because even "hello world" in those languages exceeds that 128 kB limit. You'd be surprised actually. Java Card is actually designed for memory constrained environments. It's not as featured as Java itself but it uses the same language syntax and class file format.

by usrusr 4y ago

kjksf 4y ago

Rust and Go are both general purpose languages. They overlap way more than they don't i.e. there is way more software that you can write in both languages than software that you can write in only one of them. The "best language for the job" is mostly a myth. The choice of language is mostly dictated by what you cannot do, rather than what you can do. Can I use Go or Java to program a micro-controller with 128 kB of RAM? Not really (at least no using the official, non-crippled implementation) because even "hello world" in those languages exceeds that 128 kB limit. If I'm writing a cmd-line app that I want to ship as a single binary for Windows and Mac and Linux, I'm not using Python. Technically it's possible but very few are doing it while Go gives me out of the box multi-platform compilation. The reality is that the majority of software written today falls into one of those categories: * web frontend, running in the browser, by necessity written in JavaScript or something that transpiles to JavaScript. Both Go and Rust are out of this game * web backend and similar server software: both Rust and Go compete for that * command line apps : both Rust and Go compete for that * games : AAA games are pretty much C++, Go and Rust are out (although Rust could, in principle, work) So in most cases both Rust and Go are unsuitable for the task or they compete for the task.

devrimbaris 4y ago
There you have TinyGO for embedded and wasm stuff, but it is not the same as using the same language and tooling everywhere like Rust. I like Go and a fan of Rust but for Rust,some standard libraries lagging like async and having alternatives to choose from makes me uneasy about Rust in general (tokia vs async libs e.g).i am just a beginner in Rust so i might be wrong. The game engines in Rust are way cool btw.
jfim 4y ago
> Can I use Go or Java to program a micro-controller with 128 kB of RAM? Not really (at least no using the official, non-crippled implementation) because even "hello world" in those languages exceeds that 128 kB limit. You'd be surprised actually. Java Card is actually designed for memory constrained environments. It's not as featured as Java itself but it uses the same language syntax and class file format.