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Yes, Python is the only outlier. Rust very much could still fizzle. If it does, it will be because it failed to change to be adoptable by more users. All exist

by ncmncm 4y ago

Yes, Python is the only outlier. Rust very much could still fizzle. If it does, it will be because it failed to change to be adoptable by more users. All existing users are tolerant of niche qualities. If it succeeds, the programmers who already know it will constitute less than 2% of the total, and the 98% will have picked it up after it changed to be more readily taken up. If it fizzles, current users will always be at least 70% of the total. So, if you want it to succeed, you will need to welcome the changes that can get it there.

pron 4y ago
I think all new languages have some challenges that would make it very hard for them to become as popular as older languages (none of the top five languages is under twenty years old). For one, we're long since in an era of diminishing returns — new languages have a smaller ROI compared to incumbents than the incumbents had to the languages they replaced — while the cost of a switch is the same if not higher (because codebases are larger). So switching to a new language is just not as profitable today as it was twenty years ago. For another, the market is more fragmented today than it was, say, 15 years ago. For example, while Java is not the only game in town on the server as it was in, say, 2003-2006, no other single language shows any signs of becoming as dominant as that either. Some use Python for server-side applications, some use JS, some use C#, some use Kotlin, and some use Go. There is no single language that people flock to and so Java is still the dominant server-side language (although for a while PHP seemed like it could be it). So even if Rust does gain actual traction, it's very unlikely to become the standard low-level language. Some may use Rust, some may use Zig, some will use C++, some will use C, and maybe some may use Carbon. The only new language around that seems capable of reaching a popularity similar to ~25 year-old languages is TypeScript. I also think Rust has a fundamental problem specific to it, and that is that it's a complex, rich, language. Rich/complex languages have never been super-popular, and while C++ is arguably more-or-less as complex as Rust, it wasn't when it gained its market share (only to lose much of it shortly after).
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Yet, C++ regained share by getting more complex. Language complexity is a poor measure. Better is the complexity of using a language to achieve an aim. C and Pascal are pretty simple as languages, but they make it substantially more complex to complete a task, because they lack the expressive power needed to help any. C++11 is substantially more complex than C++98, but much simpler to program with. Rust is both simpler than C++ (at surface level, because it leaves behind cruft C++ cannot) but more complex because it makes greater cognitive demands (to satisfy the borrow checker) and also because it lacks powerful features C++ offers. C++ is better able than Rust to package semantics in a library and deliver that to users on command. But Rust is way, way better in that way than C.

by ncmncm 4y ago

pron 4y ago

I think all new languages have some challenges that would make it very hard for them to become as popular as older languages (none of the top five languages is under twenty years old). For one, we're long since in an era of diminishing returns — new languages have a smaller ROI compared to incumbents than the incumbents had to the languages they replaced — while the cost of a switch is the same if not higher (because codebases are larger). So switching to a new language is just not as profitable today as it was twenty years ago. For another, the market is more fragmented today than it was, say, 15 years ago. For example, while Java is not the only game in town on the server as it was in, say, 2003-2006, no other single language shows any signs of becoming as dominant as that either. Some use Python for server-side applications, some use JS, some use C#, some use Kotlin, and some use Go. There is no single language that people flock to and so Java is still the dominant server-side language (although for a while PHP seemed like it could be it). So even if Rust does gain actual traction, it's very unlikely to become the standard low-level language. Some may use Rust, some may use Zig, some will use C++, some will use C, and maybe some may use Carbon. The only new language around that seems capable of reaching a popularity similar to ~25 year-old languages is TypeScript. I also think Rust has a fundamental problem specific to it, and that is that it's a complex, rich, language. Rich/complex languages have never been super-popular, and while C++ is arguably more-or-less as complex as Rust, it wasn't when it gained its market share (only to lose much of it shortly after).

ncmncm 4y ago
Yet, C++ regained share by getting more complex. Language complexity is a poor measure. Better is the complexity of using a language to achieve an aim. C and Pascal are pretty simple as languages, but they make it substantially more complex to complete a task, because they lack the expressive power needed to help any. C++11 is substantially more complex than C++98, but much simpler to program with. Rust is both simpler than C++ (at surface level, because it leaves behind cruft C++ cannot) but more complex because it makes greater cognitive demands (to satisfy the borrow checker) and also because it lacks powerful features C++ offers. C++ is better able than Rust to package semantics in a library and deliver that to users on command. But Rust is way, way better in that way than C.