6 ms·

> I think Rust will do just fine Not mainstream language 'fine', but fine.

by 202206241203 4y ago

IshKebab 4y ago
Rust is already a mainstream language, unless you have a weirdly restrictive definition of mainstream.
- replygirl 4y ago
  > belonging to or characteristic of the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional, or the dominant trend in opinion, fashion, or the arts by dictionary definition, rust is not mainstream. it's not normal (common, typical, customary) for an engineer to interact with rust
  - IshKebab 4y ago
    I would consider it perfectly normal to discover something in my company or on Github was written in Rust. It's the 12th most popular language on Github by PRs according to this: https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2022/1 https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2022/1 (Shell and Nix don't count). It's only 3 times less popular than C. As I said, very weird definition of mainstream.
    - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
      The measure of "mainstream" should not be "projects on github" but: code deployed (or actively deploying) in production. GitHub is full of personal interest and research and unfinished projects. It will come. It's not there yet. I still argue it's not the language best suited for what a lot of people are trying to use it for. It has a niche, one that I like, but I fail to understand why it's being deployed for web services type applications. IMHO it's not a good fit.
      - solar-ice 4y ago
        Entirely agree with that - and I'm a professional Rust dev, working with video. It's like using C++ for web services. Why would you do that?
        cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        I think people are seduced by some of the modern language features (like pattern matching, etc) by some of the third party libraries, by async [careful!], and primarily also by the WASM story that seems to be kind of going along with Rust. And by the novelty. And by promise of vaguely defined "performance." But none of this is unique to Rust. And I'm not convinced on the WASM stuff at all for writing web front ends, though I'm enamoured of it as a generic backend managed VM, but that's another story. And I think adopting Rust in many shops with a mix of developer seniority levels will be a productivity killer. I think most places doing this kind of thing would probably be better off with TypeScript, or Kotlin. Or if they want to go more functional and exotic, F#, Scala, OCaml, or Erlang/Elixir, etc. But for places where we've been doing C++ for years and setting off footguns all over the place? Rust is great! Love it.
        ralfj 4y ago
        If Rust leads to more languages for more domains adopting Rust-style enums and pattern matching (algebraic data types / sum types -- this idea predates Rust by decades, so "modern" is an interesting term to use), I'd call that a big win for everyone. :) It's pretty tricky to do that in an untyped language. But TypeScript could have this, or maybe even already does?
        cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        I mean, sure, why are we calling it "Rust-style"; it comes from ML and its descendants and Rust is obviously very influenced by them. When I say "modern" I really mean... finally learned from what "we" were "all" reading about on Lambda The Ultimate 20 years ago about languages designed 40 years ago that were not part of the mainstream until about 5-10 years ago :-) AFAIK TypeScript doesn't have ML-style pattern matching, but its type system is fairly expressive and you can do something "like" it https://dev.to/gvergnaud/bringing-pattern-matching-to-typescript-introducing-ts-pattern-v3-0-o1k https://dev.to/gvergnaud/bringing-pattern-matching-to-typesc...
    - kaba0 4y ago
      That’s not a metric I would start for defining mainstreamness. There are at least 2 orders of magnitude more program written in C that is not open-source, but part of a critical infrastructure.
  - dagmx 4y ago
    Yet here you are on a discussion about it, of many rust discussions. Many companies use it enough that most of the MANGA companies have openings for it. How is that not mainstream by even your own definition? It’s consistently a part of the current zeitgeist.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Not sure I'd go that far. I am getting paid to work full-time in Rust right now, but... My experience is the # of companies doing this that aren't "web3" companies is pretty small. Insignificant as a % of the total industry. Rust forums on LinkedIn are dominated by chatter about Solana etc. When recruiters reach out to me about Rust, it's almost always some blockchainy thing. I wouldn't characterize that as mainstream. Type "Rust" into a job search engine and see what comes up, it's mostly blockchainy stuff. Or a few shops that are "looking into" doing Rust for new projects (which is encouraging, but hard to say how that will shake out). I personally won't touch anything "crypto", so I feel somewhat lucky to be getting paid to work in Rust right now for something that isn't. But I fully expect that once this gig finishes, it'll probably be back to C++ for me.
  - ralfj 4y ago
    Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook/Meta, and Google are all using Rust in production. It's not just web3 nonsense.
    - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
      I just finished a 10 year stint at Google in December. I would characterize the amount of Rust being done at Google as ... insignifant. That could change, but apart from Fuchsia and maybe some kernel driver work I struggle to picture where it would fit in the language pantheon there.
      - ralfj 4y ago
        Yeah, I am aware it's far from a main language at these companies, but having any use at all is a strong sign. I am in contact with some people in the Android team at Google that are also using Rust (and that want to use Miri :D ).
        cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        I looked around for work in Rust inside Google a year or so before I left and it was only some small parts of Fuchsia and not anything hiring at my site. But I'm sure it's growing. But it won't be in the core Google3-on-Borg parts of Google, which are on the whole in either C++ or (increasingly) Go. Switching to a standardized garbage collected Google supported language makes sense in that domain. The "Carbon" stuff recently announced sounds interesting as well. The long term looks good for Rust. But actual production code is still thin on the ground still everywhere.

> I think Rust will do just fine Not mainstream language 'fine', but fine.

IshKebab 4y ago

Rust is already a mainstream language, unless you have a weirdly restrictive definition of mainstream.

replygirl 4y ago
> belonging to or characteristic of the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional, or the dominant trend in opinion, fashion, or the arts by dictionary definition, rust is not mainstream. it's not normal (common, typical, customary) for an engineer to interact with rust
- IshKebab 4y ago
  I would consider it perfectly normal to discover something in my company or on Github was written in Rust. It's the 12th most popular language on Github by PRs according to this: https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2022/1 https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2022/1 (Shell and Nix don't count). It's only 3 times less popular than C. As I said, very weird definition of mainstream.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    The measure of "mainstream" should not be "projects on github" but: code deployed (or actively deploying) in production. GitHub is full of personal interest and research and unfinished projects. It will come. It's not there yet. I still argue it's not the language best suited for what a lot of people are trying to use it for. It has a niche, one that I like, but I fail to understand why it's being deployed for web services type applications. IMHO it's not a good fit.
    - solar-ice 4y ago
      Entirely agree with that - and I'm a professional Rust dev, working with video. It's like using C++ for web services. Why would you do that?
      - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        I think people are seduced by some of the modern language features (like pattern matching, etc) by some of the third party libraries, by async [careful!], and primarily also by the WASM story that seems to be kind of going along with Rust. And by the novelty. And by promise of vaguely defined "performance." But none of this is unique to Rust. And I'm not convinced on the WASM stuff at all for writing web front ends, though I'm enamoured of it as a generic backend managed VM, but that's another story. And I think adopting Rust in many shops with a mix of developer seniority levels will be a productivity killer. I think most places doing this kind of thing would probably be better off with TypeScript, or Kotlin. Or if they want to go more functional and exotic, F#, Scala, OCaml, or Erlang/Elixir, etc. But for places where we've been doing C++ for years and setting off footguns all over the place? Rust is great! Love it.
        ralfj 4y ago
        If Rust leads to more languages for more domains adopting Rust-style enums and pattern matching (algebraic data types / sum types -- this idea predates Rust by decades, so "modern" is an interesting term to use), I'd call that a big win for everyone. :) It's pretty tricky to do that in an untyped language. But TypeScript could have this, or maybe even already does?
        cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        I mean, sure, why are we calling it "Rust-style"; it comes from ML and its descendants and Rust is obviously very influenced by them. When I say "modern" I really mean... finally learned from what "we" were "all" reading about on Lambda The Ultimate 20 years ago about languages designed 40 years ago that were not part of the mainstream until about 5-10 years ago :-) AFAIK TypeScript doesn't have ML-style pattern matching, but its type system is fairly expressive and you can do something "like" it https://dev.to/gvergnaud/bringing-pattern-matching-to-typescript-introducing-ts-pattern-v3-0-o1k https://dev.to/gvergnaud/bringing-pattern-matching-to-typesc...
  - kaba0 4y ago
    That’s not a metric I would start for defining mainstreamness. There are at least 2 orders of magnitude more program written in C that is not open-source, but part of a critical infrastructure.
- dagmx 4y ago
  Yet here you are on a discussion about it, of many rust discussions. Many companies use it enough that most of the MANGA companies have openings for it. How is that not mainstream by even your own definition? It’s consistently a part of the current zeitgeist.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Not sure I'd go that far. I am getting paid to work full-time in Rust right now, but... My experience is the # of companies doing this that aren't "web3" companies is pretty small. Insignificant as a % of the total industry. Rust forums on LinkedIn are dominated by chatter about Solana etc. When recruiters reach out to me about Rust, it's almost always some blockchainy thing. I wouldn't characterize that as mainstream. Type "Rust" into a job search engine and see what comes up, it's mostly blockchainy stuff. Or a few shops that are "looking into" doing Rust for new projects (which is encouraging, but hard to say how that will shake out). I personally won't touch anything "crypto", so I feel somewhat lucky to be getting paid to work in Rust right now for something that isn't. But I fully expect that once this gig finishes, it'll probably be back to C++ for me.
- ralfj 4y ago
  Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook/Meta, and Google are all using Rust in production. It's not just web3 nonsense.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    I just finished a 10 year stint at Google in December. I would characterize the amount of Rust being done at Google as ... insignifant. That could change, but apart from Fuchsia and maybe some kernel driver work I struggle to picture where it would fit in the language pantheon there.
    - ralfj 4y ago
      Yeah, I am aware it's far from a main language at these companies, but having any use at all is a strong sign. I am in contact with some people in the Android team at Google that are also using Rust (and that want to use Miri :D ).
      - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        I looked around for work in Rust inside Google a year or so before I left and it was only some small parts of Fuchsia and not anything hiring at my site. But I'm sure it's growing. But it won't be in the core Google3-on-Borg parts of Google, which are on the whole in either C++ or (increasingly) Go. Switching to a standardized garbage collected Google supported language makes sense in that domain. The "Carbon" stuff recently announced sounds interesting as well. The long term looks good for Rust. But actual production code is still thin on the ground still everywhere.