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It’s interesting that to criticize rust without being downvoted to death, one must first say how wonderful and superior to c++ it is.

qsdf38100 4y ago
- qsdf38100 4y ago
linkdd 4y ago
You mean that acknowledging the strengths of a technology and adding constructive criticism is not downvoted while claiming that "it sucks" without any argumentation is? Who would have thought...
- ncmncm 4y ago
  No. It means that people are still touchy and insecure about Rust and its merits, and (rightfully) worried that being obliged to stand just on its merits it will fizzle. Rust still has a very great deal of evolution to get through before it is ready to compete on an even playing field. It has very little time in which to achieve this, the competition is not sitting still, and the numbers are strongly against it Rust could still become a mainstream language if it changes enough not to repel the majority of professionals who try it out on production-level problems. A clear majority of existing users would object to the needed changes.
  - linkdd 4y ago
    GC-less languages would have to break backward compatibility to implement lifetime/ownership management. Rust's goals do not fit every single problem out there. As the author said in their articles, Rust is not a general purpose language. Rust makes you care about many subjects that are solved in an opiniated way by higher-level languages. It wants you to be explicit about those problematics, it wants you to carefully consider the implications and make your own decisions. Rust made me realize that nothing is trivial: even `printf()` can fail. Certainly, this is not a good fit for the "don't be afraid to break things" philosophy. But when you are in a field where you care about that, and you need the safety, Rust is actually, to my knowledge, the only tool that can help you. Rust is complex, because programming is complex. Other languages are simpler, because the decisions have been made for you, and you can only accept it or use another language. For C and C++, you need extra tools to get to the same level of confidence about your code (just look at the SQLite toolchain/test suite). You can criticize Rust, just like you can criticize anything. You just have to be constructive about it. You'll never see the following comment being upvoted: Rust syntax is rotten garbage, it's unreadable. Why? Because it's subjective, it is definitely not constructive. But the following comment might be upvoted: Rust is a complex language that is difficult to approach for a newbie. Because it acknowledges the problems Rust is trying to solve. None of those hypothetical comments are praising Rust.
- qsdf38100 4y ago
  Notice how I didn’t say it sucks.
dang 4y ago
Please don't take HN threads into tedious flamewars, and definitely not tedious meta flamewars. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31613361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31613361.
zozbot234 4y ago
"There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses."

qsdf38100 4y ago

qsdf38100 4y ago

linkdd 4y ago

You mean that acknowledging the strengths of a technology and adding constructive criticism is not downvoted while claiming that "it sucks" without any argumentation is? Who would have thought...

ncmncm 4y ago
No. It means that people are still touchy and insecure about Rust and its merits, and (rightfully) worried that being obliged to stand just on its merits it will fizzle. Rust still has a very great deal of evolution to get through before it is ready to compete on an even playing field. It has very little time in which to achieve this, the competition is not sitting still, and the numbers are strongly against it Rust could still become a mainstream language if it changes enough not to repel the majority of professionals who try it out on production-level problems. A clear majority of existing users would object to the needed changes.
- linkdd 4y ago
  GC-less languages would have to break backward compatibility to implement lifetime/ownership management. Rust's goals do not fit every single problem out there. As the author said in their articles, Rust is not a general purpose language. Rust makes you care about many subjects that are solved in an opiniated way by higher-level languages. It wants you to be explicit about those problematics, it wants you to carefully consider the implications and make your own decisions. Rust made me realize that nothing is trivial: even `printf()` can fail. Certainly, this is not a good fit for the "don't be afraid to break things" philosophy. But when you are in a field where you care about that, and you need the safety, Rust is actually, to my knowledge, the only tool that can help you. Rust is complex, because programming is complex. Other languages are simpler, because the decisions have been made for you, and you can only accept it or use another language. For C and C++, you need extra tools to get to the same level of confidence about your code (just look at the SQLite toolchain/test suite). You can criticize Rust, just like you can criticize anything. You just have to be constructive about it. You'll never see the following comment being upvoted: Rust syntax is rotten garbage, it's unreadable. Why? Because it's subjective, it is definitely not constructive. But the following comment might be upvoted: Rust is a complex language that is difficult to approach for a newbie. Because it acknowledges the problems Rust is trying to solve. None of those hypothetical comments are praising Rust.
qsdf38100 4y ago
Notice how I didn’t say it sucks.

dang 4y ago

Please don't take HN threads into tedious flamewars, and definitely not tedious meta flamewars. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31613361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31613361.

zozbot234 4y ago

"There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses."