4 ms·

>Yeah, everyone wants to be a Rust programmer I understand why you might have got that impression, but that's a far cry from the reality

amelius 4y ago
It really puzzles me why smart people want to spend their time satisfying the borrow checker rather than inventing new and useful things.
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  I don't remember the 'satisfying the borrow checker' phase lasting more than a few weeks. Once you internalize the rules the borrow checker gets out of your way and it's more of a sanity check. I think part of the issue is that it wasn't very well explained in the book at the time I started learning rust. This might have improved since.
  - amelius 4y ago
    The entire way of coding in Rust revolves around satisfying the borrow checker. At some point it may become second nature, but you are still jumping through Rust's hoops, which will make your code full of compromises that would otherwise not exist.
    - unrealhoang 4y ago
      So does the entire way of coding in any static-typed language, your code is full of compromises that would otherwise not exist in a dynamic-type language. Rust is just another layer of static typing.
      - amelius 4y ago
        Yes. It's another level of the same problem. Rust is like a piano where certain keys have been removed so you never play out of key.
        stouset 4y ago
        You can pretty much make this same argument about any language higher-level than C.
        unrealhoang 4y ago
        maybe assembly. Even C can be applied to their argument just fine.
    - dralley 4y ago
      >you are still jumping through Rust's hoops, which will make your code full of compromises that would otherwise not exist. The same can be said in reverse. There are many, many C and C++ codebases that make design compromises and copy data unnecessarily so as not to be utterly hellish to maintain. People meme about "fearless concurrency" but it's true, with Rust you don't need KGB levels of paranoia and attentiveness to write parallel or reference-heavy code. I can write code in Rust I would never be comfortable writing in C/C++ because the language gives me the confidence to not compromise in those areas.
- tayo42 4y ago
  Sometimes I think that people get bored programming so they need languages to make it harder and interesting lol
- stouset 4y ago
  "It really puzzles me why smart people want to spend their time satisfying the (compiler errors | warnings | linter) rather than inventing new and useful things." Over the past fifty years we've realized that even incredibly smart people suck at avoiding the gazillion pitfalls involved in programming. Virtually every professional programming environment these days employs a suite of tools that help ensure we don't make certain classes of avoidable mistakes, and the borrow checker is simply another one of these tools to protect us from ourselves. Am I to assume you don't turn on any warnings or linters in any of your projects?
ThePhysicist 4y ago
Just an exaggeration of course based on the current hype and over-enthusiasm for the language.

amelius 4y ago

It really puzzles me why smart people want to spend their time satisfying the borrow checker rather than inventing new and useful things.

sebzim4500 4y ago
I don't remember the 'satisfying the borrow checker' phase lasting more than a few weeks. Once you internalize the rules the borrow checker gets out of your way and it's more of a sanity check. I think part of the issue is that it wasn't very well explained in the book at the time I started learning rust. This might have improved since.
- amelius 4y ago
  The entire way of coding in Rust revolves around satisfying the borrow checker. At some point it may become second nature, but you are still jumping through Rust's hoops, which will make your code full of compromises that would otherwise not exist.
  - unrealhoang 4y ago
    So does the entire way of coding in any static-typed language, your code is full of compromises that would otherwise not exist in a dynamic-type language. Rust is just another layer of static typing.
    - amelius 4y ago
      Yes. It's another level of the same problem. Rust is like a piano where certain keys have been removed so you never play out of key.
      - stouset 4y ago
        You can pretty much make this same argument about any language higher-level than C.
        unrealhoang 4y ago
        maybe assembly. Even C can be applied to their argument just fine.
  - dralley 4y ago
    >you are still jumping through Rust's hoops, which will make your code full of compromises that would otherwise not exist. The same can be said in reverse. There are many, many C and C++ codebases that make design compromises and copy data unnecessarily so as not to be utterly hellish to maintain. People meme about "fearless concurrency" but it's true, with Rust you don't need KGB levels of paranoia and attentiveness to write parallel or reference-heavy code. I can write code in Rust I would never be comfortable writing in C/C++ because the language gives me the confidence to not compromise in those areas.
tayo42 4y ago
Sometimes I think that people get bored programming so they need languages to make it harder and interesting lol
stouset 4y ago
"It really puzzles me why smart people want to spend their time satisfying the (compiler errors | warnings | linter) rather than inventing new and useful things." Over the past fifty years we've realized that even incredibly smart people suck at avoiding the gazillion pitfalls involved in programming. Virtually every professional programming environment these days employs a suite of tools that help ensure we don't make certain classes of avoidable mistakes, and the borrow checker is simply another one of these tools to protect us from ourselves. Am I to assume you don't turn on any warnings or linters in any of your projects?

ThePhysicist 4y ago

Just an exaggeration of course based on the current hype and over-enthusiasm for the language.