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There is no real reason or place for gatekeeping in tech like this. When I was 15 I didn’t know anything and C was my first language. It led to a long and fruit

There is no real reason or place for gatekeeping in tech like this. When I was 15 I didn’t know anything and C was my first language. It led to a long and fruitful career in tech for me. Just stick to the hardcore groups, they are always out there. A motivated teenager can figure out this “hard” language. I was writing assembly, using function pointers, running a MUD, and competent at GDB by the time I was 17. Plus Rust is really easy to start with and the books are free. I had C for Dummies.

neilv 4y ago
Not gatekeeping. Just not pretending it's easy. Another tech community I'm in is known for being extremely helpful to newcomers who are interested (e.g., anyone who's interested will typically get an expert answering their questions). That's different from saying the subject matter is easy, and mass-advertising it to people looking for easy.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  But a bunch of it is easy. Are Unsafe Rust and Procedural (as opposed by "By example") Macros easy? No, unsafe Rust is potentially really hard. If you are implementing a new concurrency primitive or something you're going to need at least the expertise you'd want for the same work in C++. However in Rust you know where the line is, "Huh, I need unsafe, I should find a grown-up". And knowing that the problem areas are flagged gives you confidence everywhere else. But many ordinary programming tasks are pretty easy, compared to Python you will spend a bit more time with the compiler refusing to compile your program because it's wrong, but on the other hand a bit less time with the program failing at runtime for trivial reasons a compiler would have spotted (compare what happens if you typo a variable name in Rust versus Python!)
  - bitexploder 4y ago
    Rust is a language that will reward you for embracing it and going deeper as well, which is great.

neilv 4y ago

Not gatekeeping. Just not pretending it's easy. Another tech community I'm in is known for being extremely helpful to newcomers who are interested (e.g., anyone who's interested will typically get an expert answering their questions). That's different from saying the subject matter is easy, and mass-advertising it to people looking for easy.

tialaramex 4y ago
But a bunch of it is easy. Are Unsafe Rust and Procedural (as opposed by "By example") Macros easy? No, unsafe Rust is potentially really hard. If you are implementing a new concurrency primitive or something you're going to need at least the expertise you'd want for the same work in C++. However in Rust you know where the line is, "Huh, I need unsafe, I should find a grown-up". And knowing that the problem areas are flagged gives you confidence everywhere else. But many ordinary programming tasks are pretty easy, compared to Python you will spend a bit more time with the compiler refusing to compile your program because it's wrong, but on the other hand a bit less time with the program failing at runtime for trivial reasons a compiler would have spotted (compare what happens if you typo a variable name in Rust versus Python!)
- bitexploder 4y ago
  Rust is a language that will reward you for embracing it and going deeper as well, which is great.