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> the Borrow Checker... does that affect "pedestrian" code Unfortunately, the reason why you hear complaints is because it does affect even normal code. Writin

by qsort 4y ago

> the Borrow Checker... does that affect "pedestrian" code Unfortunately, the reason why you hear complaints is because it does affect even normal code. Writing code in a setting where you have a strict type system is like writing a mathematical proof. You know that the thing you want to do is safe/correct/valid, but you have to find a way to write it formally, which is itself kind of a puzzle. Don't get me wrong, I think stricter type systems are the future of programming, except maybe for very high level stuff like Python and Js, but there's definitely some friction involved when the language is a "puzzle language" that insists you do things in a specific way. With Python or C++, most experienced programmers will be able to bang out just about anything. With Haskell, Rust, Idris, OCaml and the like, there's this additional step of writing a very detailed math proof that your code is actually allowed. Which makes a lot of sense when you think about those languages' goals. > Where would Rust fit in this picture? There's PyO3, not as stable as pybind11 but it's getting there. Honestly Python is just great for stuff like this. You have a lot of ways to gradually speed it up (types -> cython, C++, Rust). It's about as elegant as an octopus made stapling extra legs to a dog, but it's hard to argue it's not effective.

smolder 4y ago
> With Python or C++, most experienced programmers will be able to bang out just about anything. I think the trade off you often get with Rust compared to C++ is that easy things get harder to do and harder things get easier to do correctly. This won't be true for every problem or person but I think it's a fine rule of thumb. Python is a lot more straightforward than either for most problems of any complexity but of course you don't get the same performance potential where you're not grafting it onto a different language.

by qsort 4y ago

smolder 4y ago

> With Python or C++, most experienced programmers will be able to bang out just about anything. I think the trade off you often get with Rust compared to C++ is that easy things get harder to do and harder things get easier to do correctly. This won't be true for every problem or person but I think it's a fine rule of thumb. Python is a lot more straightforward than either for most problems of any complexity but of course you don't get the same performance potential where you're not grafting it onto a different language.