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I was very put off from Rust because of the people acting out those stereotypes that I've encountered whenever the topic comes up. But then I decided to just le

I was very put off from Rust because of the people acting out those stereotypes that I've encountered whenever the topic comes up. But then I decided to just learn it (partially driven by work requirements), and it's honestly great. I don't think we should be rewriting a ton of software just because there's better compiler-level safeguards, but it does make it much harder to shoot yourself in the foot without realizing it. There's some issues, dynamic linking isn't really supported. I've had good luck with various embedded targets, having trialed STM32F4s, RP2040, ESP32-C3, and am waiting on getting an NRF52840. Surprisingly, the ESP32-C3 is the best out of the box experience I've had, but library support is just not there. IMO Rust is a really good language, and it deserves it's place in the toolbelt of most systems programmers. It's not always the right choice, but it's usually a good choice.

consp 4y ago
> But then I decided to just learn it (partially driven by work requirements), and it's honestly great. I did for work as well and in my case I do not want to touch it again for quite a while. Cargo is a terrible system with all kinds of hidden and possible broken dependencies you introduce and everything depends highly on the version of rust you use. It's not even close to mature enough to consider using except for test projects. It doesn't fix programmer errors despite every rust user trying to convince me otherwise that all imported crates are perfect. I like the idea of the language somewhat but the entire ecosystem ruins it for me.
- packetlost 4y ago
  > I did for work as well and in my case I do not want to touch it again for quite a while. Cargo is a terrible system with all kinds of hidden and possible broken dependencies you introduce and everything depends highly on the version of rust you use I've encountered none of this. Of course Cargo is going to have broken libs, it's just a package repo like npm, pypi (+ pip), etc.. The differences between "editions" is pretty large, but I haven't seen much reason to not use the latest release in most cases. The tooling out there is very good at supporting multiple toolchains simultaneously (though, not in the same project, necessarily). > It doesn't fix programmer errors despite every rust user trying to convince me otherwise No engineer who knows what they're talking about will ever say this. You're either spewing lies or are believing the words of people who have no idea what they're talking about, neither of which are good. Rust helps prevent a specific class of memory errors that are very common in C (and to a lesser extent, C++). It still gives you the `unsafe` escape hatch that lets you do almost anything you can do in C. > It's not even close to mature enough to consider using except for test projects. Our production hard-realtime control system begs to differ.
- kouteiheika 4y ago
  > Cargo is a terrible system with all kinds of hidden and possible broken dependencies you introduce and everything depends highly on the version of rust you use. Can you give a concrete example of this?
- maherbeg 4y ago
  What language and ecosystem do you like using? I'm curious as to what ecosystem isn't terrible unless it's just C with vendored dependencies.
gspr 4y ago
> dynamic linking isn't really supported This is one of my few big gripes with Rust too, but it should be pointed out that it's dynamic linking with other Rust code that isn't really supported. Dynamic linking with e.g. C libraries is a breeze.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  You can of course link with Rust code that exports a pure C ABI. Such code works just like a shared library coded in C/C++.
- ok123456 4y ago
  I'm not sure how useful that would be since people pin specific version of libraries with Rust. They don't care about ABI stability so even if you could just update links to a library, the interface would be horribly broken. Part of the discipline of writing C++ and C libraries is writing around a stable interface, that you can link against. In C++ that means using the pImpl pattern.
  - gspr 4y ago
    > They don't care about ABI stability so even if you could just update links to a library, the interface would be horribly broken. Which is, of course, the actual gripe we're discussing. The lack of dynamic linking is just a consequence.
    - ok123456 4y ago
      If there's an exploit/problem in, say, a crypto library, Rust's ecosystem seems less resilient. Instead of just updating the library system wide, you have to get everyone to rebuild their applications with a safe version of the library (if it's even possible). This has happened and will absolutely happen again. Just being "memory safe" will not prevent protocol errors, bad IVs, preventing timing attacks, or the other subtle things involved when doing cryptography on the wider internet.
      - 4y ago

consp 4y ago

> But then I decided to just learn it (partially driven by work requirements), and it's honestly great. I did for work as well and in my case I do not want to touch it again for quite a while. Cargo is a terrible system with all kinds of hidden and possible broken dependencies you introduce and everything depends highly on the version of rust you use. It's not even close to mature enough to consider using except for test projects. It doesn't fix programmer errors despite every rust user trying to convince me otherwise that all imported crates are perfect. I like the idea of the language somewhat but the entire ecosystem ruins it for me.

packetlost 4y ago
> I did for work as well and in my case I do not want to touch it again for quite a while. Cargo is a terrible system with all kinds of hidden and possible broken dependencies you introduce and everything depends highly on the version of rust you use I've encountered none of this. Of course Cargo is going to have broken libs, it's just a package repo like npm, pypi (+ pip), etc.. The differences between "editions" is pretty large, but I haven't seen much reason to not use the latest release in most cases. The tooling out there is very good at supporting multiple toolchains simultaneously (though, not in the same project, necessarily). > It doesn't fix programmer errors despite every rust user trying to convince me otherwise No engineer who knows what they're talking about will ever say this. You're either spewing lies or are believing the words of people who have no idea what they're talking about, neither of which are good. Rust helps prevent a specific class of memory errors that are very common in C (and to a lesser extent, C++). It still gives you the `unsafe` escape hatch that lets you do almost anything you can do in C. > It's not even close to mature enough to consider using except for test projects. Our production hard-realtime control system begs to differ.
kouteiheika 4y ago
> Cargo is a terrible system with all kinds of hidden and possible broken dependencies you introduce and everything depends highly on the version of rust you use. Can you give a concrete example of this?
maherbeg 4y ago
What language and ecosystem do you like using? I'm curious as to what ecosystem isn't terrible unless it's just C with vendored dependencies.

gspr 4y ago

> dynamic linking isn't really supported This is one of my few big gripes with Rust too, but it should be pointed out that it's dynamic linking with other Rust code that isn't really supported. Dynamic linking with e.g. C libraries is a breeze.

zozbot234 4y ago
You can of course link with Rust code that exports a pure C ABI. Such code works just like a shared library coded in C/C++.
ok123456 4y ago
I'm not sure how useful that would be since people pin specific version of libraries with Rust. They don't care about ABI stability so even if you could just update links to a library, the interface would be horribly broken. Part of the discipline of writing C++ and C libraries is writing around a stable interface, that you can link against. In C++ that means using the pImpl pattern.
- gspr 4y ago
  > They don't care about ABI stability so even if you could just update links to a library, the interface would be horribly broken. Which is, of course, the actual gripe we're discussing. The lack of dynamic linking is just a consequence.
  - ok123456 4y ago
    If there's an exploit/problem in, say, a crypto library, Rust's ecosystem seems less resilient. Instead of just updating the library system wide, you have to get everyone to rebuild their applications with a safe version of the library (if it's even possible). This has happened and will absolutely happen again. Just being "memory safe" will not prevent protocol errors, bad IVs, preventing timing attacks, or the other subtle things involved when doing cryptography on the wider internet.
    - 4y ago