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If your objective is specifically systems programming then you'll quickly outgrow python, but I'm not convinced that makes it the wrong starting point. For syst

If your objective is specifically systems programming then you'll quickly outgrow python, but I'm not convinced that makes it the wrong starting point. For systems programming you'll likely need both high-level and low-level programming concepts. Learning low-level first is absolutely a valid path, but my point is that going high-level first is equally valid. People on the internet like to make out like someone who starts out by learning Python are incapable of later learning low-level concepts, but if anything they're at an advantage compared with someone with no programming experience at all.

zarzavat 4y ago
It’s easier to learn low level first because then you are going “downhill” as you move into higher level languages. For a Python programmer, the borrow checker is terrifying and confounding “Why do I have to do this lifetime nonsense just to make a string? I don’t have to do that Python!” For a C programmer, the Rust borrow checker is likely to elicit feelings of relief and jubilation “You mean I don’t have to spend another afternoon in valgrind tracking down use after free bugs? Awesome!”
- eru 4y ago
  I started with BASIC on a C64. BASIC was always supposed to damage your brain. So far, C, Scheme, Python, Haskell, Erlang, Rust etc haven't been too hard. (Though I'm not sure I'm cut out for C++'s antics or Java's dependency injection.)
- nicoburns 4y ago
  My experience hanging out in r/rust for the last few years is that it’s C, C++, and Java programmers who have the most trouble with the borrow checker. Many C/C++ programmers are used to being able to play fast and loose with pointers, and find the borrow checker restrictive because it won’t let them use the patterns they’re used to using. Java programmers are used to an object oriented style with mutable references to objects all over the place (which you can’t do in Rust). OTOH hand languages like python (and especially JavaScript where pipelines of pure data transformations are already idiomatic) don’t use references much anyway, so use of them is new and doesn’t come with so many expectations.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    There’s C++ programmers and then there’s C++ programmers. The C++ programmers who have been using std::unique_ptr have absolutely the easiest time learning Rust as Rust is basically C++11 smart pointers on steroids. These C++ programmers usually have the opposite problem, there’s things you are allowed to do in Rust, that you can’t safely do in C++ without copying. Then there are C++ programmers who are still using C++98 style for whatever reason (commonly gamedev) and they don’t benefit from any similarities because their style of C++ is so old that there aren’t any similarities.
    - nicoburns 4y ago
      > There’s C++ programmers and then there’s C++ programmers. Indeed, there's a subset of C++ (and C) programmers who get Rust almost immediately, because they've effectively been informally using a similar ownership model in their C++ (/C) code already. But there's another subset who write "fast and loose" C++ (/C) on the principle that "it's fine if it works at runtime", and they tend to really struggle.

zarzavat 4y ago

It’s easier to learn low level first because then you are going “downhill” as you move into higher level languages. For a Python programmer, the borrow checker is terrifying and confounding “Why do I have to do this lifetime nonsense just to make a string? I don’t have to do that Python!” For a C programmer, the Rust borrow checker is likely to elicit feelings of relief and jubilation “You mean I don’t have to spend another afternoon in valgrind tracking down use after free bugs? Awesome!”

eru 4y ago
I started with BASIC on a C64. BASIC was always supposed to damage your brain. So far, C, Scheme, Python, Haskell, Erlang, Rust etc haven't been too hard. (Though I'm not sure I'm cut out for C++'s antics or Java's dependency injection.)
nicoburns 4y ago
My experience hanging out in r/rust for the last few years is that it’s C, C++, and Java programmers who have the most trouble with the borrow checker. Many C/C++ programmers are used to being able to play fast and loose with pointers, and find the borrow checker restrictive because it won’t let them use the patterns they’re used to using. Java programmers are used to an object oriented style with mutable references to objects all over the place (which you can’t do in Rust). OTOH hand languages like python (and especially JavaScript where pipelines of pure data transformations are already idiomatic) don’t use references much anyway, so use of them is new and doesn’t come with so many expectations.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  There’s C++ programmers and then there’s C++ programmers. The C++ programmers who have been using std::unique_ptr have absolutely the easiest time learning Rust as Rust is basically C++11 smart pointers on steroids. These C++ programmers usually have the opposite problem, there’s things you are allowed to do in Rust, that you can’t safely do in C++ without copying. Then there are C++ programmers who are still using C++98 style for whatever reason (commonly gamedev) and they don’t benefit from any similarities because their style of C++ is so old that there aren’t any similarities.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > There’s C++ programmers and then there’s C++ programmers. Indeed, there's a subset of C++ (and C) programmers who get Rust almost immediately, because they've effectively been informally using a similar ownership model in their C++ (/C) code already. But there's another subset who write "fast and loose" C++ (/C) on the principle that "it's fine if it works at runtime", and they tend to really struggle.