4 ms·

Rust is not a great choice for startups! In fact, NO LANGUAGE is a great choice for startups! You don't choose languages depending on whether you're a startup!

Rust is not a great choice for startups! In fact, NO LANGUAGE is a great choice for startups! You don't choose languages depending on whether you're a startup! You choose languages based of the problem you're trying to solve, how fit the language is for solving that particular problem, the ecosystem supporting that language, and the availability of developers who are experienced with that language. Rust just may be the best choice for your startup, but it's not necessarily the best choice for all startups - in fact it's probably not the best choice for most startups! That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Rust, it just means Rust isn't the right tool for the job most startups are trying to tackle. If it is the right tool then absolutely you should use it!

StefanHamminga 4y ago
I've seen this in action: A startup I did consulting work for had a "genius" who convinced management that everything should be written in Haskell. As a consequence building a team was painfully slow, so slow that some guy in a weekend recreated in node.js what their 15 people team had painstaking put together in 3 months. Turns out doing a web service with tools meant for it was better than "everything should be functional".
- omegalulw 4y ago
  I would love to hear that argument for Haskell for web dev.
- taylodl 4y ago
  Unpopular opinion - Haskell was intended for research and learning, not so much for mainstream production code. I'm not saying you can't use Haskell for that purpose, but you should think long and hard before doing so. If the answer is still yes then go back and make sure you've thought long enough and hard enough! :)
  - JoelMcCracken 4y ago
    Haskell is fine for production code. You just need to know what you're doing, and not go crazy with abstraction.
    - ygram 4y ago
      It's the same for all languages, premature abstraction is a plauge in this industry.
      - JoelMcCracken 4y ago
        Yep. But sadly Haskell does give you more rope to hang yourself with. Refactoring and normal development is so easy and then people use all that power to go nuts. Such a shame.
    - incrudible 4y ago
      Haskell culture is all about exploration, which means you do not know what you are doing, by definition. A large part of that exploration revolves around abstraction.
      - JoelMcCracken 4y ago
        You shouldn't make the job harder than it needs to be. The main danger is using tools/techniques you don't know well. Learn radical new approaches on your own time. Don't bet the farm on the latest free monad framework which has 10 downloads on hackage.
    - akhmatova 4y ago
      You just need to know what you're doing The problem is that there just aren't that many people who choose to invest in learning Haskell -- or for that matter, the essential-to-master nooks and crannies of Rust. And the learning curve to get there is intrinsically steeper that for, well, all those "dum-dum" ducktyped and/or mostly procedural languages one imagines you don't particular care much for, now do you. Of course it's known that some shops, like Jane Street, have gone whole hog on FP and have managed to do all right, it seems (even arguing that "the fact that the learning curve for our bread and butter is significantly higher than for the usual college-taught languages is a feature, not a bug"). That may work if have the same brand recognition (not to mention salary and bonus pool available) as Jane Street. And even then, it's not exactly proven that large-scale FP worked out so well for them. Just that they didn't tank. But if you don't have their clout and resoures... from first principles, you should probably think twice before making the same bet that they did.
  - wly_cdgr 4y ago
    I don't think that's an unpopular opinion among realistic, practical people
- JoelMcCracken 4y ago
  I'd really love to hear more details about those Haskell services. I'd put money on either the team not knowing Haskell when they started, or the "genius" was one of those completely impractical people who do type-level astronautics in Haskell.
  - incrudible 4y ago
    I think you just described the only two types of Haskell programmers that actually exist in a meaningful number.
    - JoelMcCracken 4y ago
      There are a lot of us. But we are a minority in the Haskell world I think.
valbaca 4y ago
> Rust just may be the best choice for your startup, but it's not necessarily the best choice for all startups - in fact it's probably not the best choice for most startups! Maybe it's just an assumption on your end. Neither title nor author imply that it's THE choice. The title literally says "a great choice" > In the next post we’ll go into some of the downsides of using Rust.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > The title literally says "a great choice" When in reality it may be, or it may be the worst possible choice. This is the parent commenter's point, I believe.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Looking forward to see how Rust is a great choice for startups doing mobile apps, native GUIs for desktop or embedded devices, or game development for consoles.

StefanHamminga 4y ago

I've seen this in action: A startup I did consulting work for had a "genius" who convinced management that everything should be written in Haskell. As a consequence building a team was painfully slow, so slow that some guy in a weekend recreated in node.js what their 15 people team had painstaking put together in 3 months. Turns out doing a web service with tools meant for it was better than "everything should be functional".

omegalulw 4y ago
I would love to hear that argument for Haskell for web dev.
taylodl 4y ago
Unpopular opinion - Haskell was intended for research and learning, not so much for mainstream production code. I'm not saying you can't use Haskell for that purpose, but you should think long and hard before doing so. If the answer is still yes then go back and make sure you've thought long enough and hard enough! :)
- JoelMcCracken 4y ago
  Haskell is fine for production code. You just need to know what you're doing, and not go crazy with abstraction.
  - ygram 4y ago
    It's the same for all languages, premature abstraction is a plauge in this industry.
    - JoelMcCracken 4y ago
      Yep. But sadly Haskell does give you more rope to hang yourself with. Refactoring and normal development is so easy and then people use all that power to go nuts. Such a shame.
  - incrudible 4y ago
    Haskell culture is all about exploration, which means you do not know what you are doing, by definition. A large part of that exploration revolves around abstraction.
    - JoelMcCracken 4y ago
      You shouldn't make the job harder than it needs to be. The main danger is using tools/techniques you don't know well. Learn radical new approaches on your own time. Don't bet the farm on the latest free monad framework which has 10 downloads on hackage.
  - akhmatova 4y ago
    You just need to know what you're doing The problem is that there just aren't that many people who choose to invest in learning Haskell -- or for that matter, the essential-to-master nooks and crannies of Rust. And the learning curve to get there is intrinsically steeper that for, well, all those "dum-dum" ducktyped and/or mostly procedural languages one imagines you don't particular care much for, now do you. Of course it's known that some shops, like Jane Street, have gone whole hog on FP and have managed to do all right, it seems (even arguing that "the fact that the learning curve for our bread and butter is significantly higher than for the usual college-taught languages is a feature, not a bug"). That may work if have the same brand recognition (not to mention salary and bonus pool available) as Jane Street. And even then, it's not exactly proven that large-scale FP worked out so well for them. Just that they didn't tank. But if you don't have their clout and resoures... from first principles, you should probably think twice before making the same bet that they did.
- wly_cdgr 4y ago
  I don't think that's an unpopular opinion among realistic, practical people
JoelMcCracken 4y ago
I'd really love to hear more details about those Haskell services. I'd put money on either the team not knowing Haskell when they started, or the "genius" was one of those completely impractical people who do type-level astronautics in Haskell.
- incrudible 4y ago
  I think you just described the only two types of Haskell programmers that actually exist in a meaningful number.
  - JoelMcCracken 4y ago
    There are a lot of us. But we are a minority in the Haskell world I think.

valbaca 4y ago

> Rust just may be the best choice for your startup, but it's not necessarily the best choice for all startups - in fact it's probably not the best choice for most startups! Maybe it's just an assumption on your end. Neither title nor author imply that it's THE choice. The title literally says "a great choice" > In the next post we’ll go into some of the downsides of using Rust.

CharlesW 4y ago
> The title literally says "a great choice" When in reality it may be, or it may be the worst possible choice. This is the parent commenter's point, I believe.
pjmlp 4y ago
Looking forward to see how Rust is a great choice for startups doing mobile apps, native GUIs for desktop or embedded devices, or game development for consoles.