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I could be wrong, but I think there's few big camps of people. The camp that thinks Rust is just unnecessary fuss because "you can do it all" in C++ already. T

I could be wrong, but I think there's few big camps of people. The camp that thinks Rust is just unnecessary fuss because "you can do it all" in C++ already. They pride themselves with knowing C++ esoterica, and don't like that Rust lowers the entry barrier to writing similar software. They want an exclusive club. They also see ownership as a nuisance. They know you can be equally reckless in Rust too, but they don't like that Rust is so "in your face" about it, too. The camp that is afraid Rust will marginalise C++ and hence push them towards undesirable (even if high paying) jobs. There's the camp that's jaded by seeing too many fads come and go, and probably just burnt out at some point. So, they just want to work with what's there and be left alone. They don't want to learn something that they know (incorrectly or not isn't for me to judge here) will be dead in the water soon. And they'll have wasted their energy on it for naught. Or in short, they see it as an unwelcome distraction. This camp also includes "but it has no ISO specification for aviation/etc" too. I think all these are wrong. I don't think C++ will be marginalised, it just won't be the default choice for certain domains. I don't think the extra tooling is a nuisance, if anything in my experience it unburdens the mind from non-domain concerns. And I also don't think it's a fad, given how productive the language makes people feel, and the fact the Rust Foundation is very serious about the longevity of the project, and that it has many big-player backers. There's also obviously others too; people come in about 8 billion flavours.

dxuh 4y ago
I don't fall into any of the camps you mentioned specifically. I have been using C++ as my main programming language for a good 15 years and am a big fan of modern C++. I tried Rust for a month (every day) and I just feel like it gets in my way too much and it's just not worth the extra friction. A friend of mine (using Python as a physicist) wanted to try system programming recently and I told them to just try Rust and not trouble themselves with C++. I think Rust is the easier language to learn and probably just as powerful, but C++ just gets in your way less. It's not as hard to use correctly as people pretend it is (though I admit that years of experience and studying are required) and if you can use it relatively well you can write safe code without much trouble and you can also have a very high (higher than Rust) level of control seamlessly at the same time. I don't know many people with similar preferences, but most of them do game development, if that helps to contextualize a bit. There safety is not as important and development speed is much more important than for other applications.
- simiones 4y ago
  > It's not as hard to use correctly as people pretend it is (though I admit that years of experience and studying are required) The original statement and the one in parens are directly at odds with each other. If every C++ dev requires years of experience and studying to use correctly, it follows that they have left years worth of code that is not done correctly in their wake. Also, no other (non-esoteric) language requires this high a barrier to write correctly. > if you can use it relatively well you can write safe code without much trouble And yet there isn't a single large C++ project that doesn't suffer from violations of memory safety - the one class of bugs that we know how to eliminate completely, if using a proper runtime system.
  - menaerus 4y ago
    > violations of memory safety - the one class of bugs that we know how to eliminate completely, Do we? Why exactly do we need sanitizers in Rust then?
batty_alex 4y ago
Ultimately, I'll use what I have to use. I, personally, don't like Rust's syntax and will miss the static inheritance of templates. There's a lot I won't miss, on the other hand My biggest issue with most Rust posts is that they set up strawman C++ arguments (that are usually just C code targeting a C++ compiler). I'm sold on all the idea behind Rust and making sure that programmers can't just easily drop down to insecure parts of a language - I just don't think we should be shaming good C++ codebases because we want Rust to "win."

dxuh 4y ago

I don't fall into any of the camps you mentioned specifically. I have been using C++ as my main programming language for a good 15 years and am a big fan of modern C++. I tried Rust for a month (every day) and I just feel like it gets in my way too much and it's just not worth the extra friction. A friend of mine (using Python as a physicist) wanted to try system programming recently and I told them to just try Rust and not trouble themselves with C++. I think Rust is the easier language to learn and probably just as powerful, but C++ just gets in your way less. It's not as hard to use correctly as people pretend it is (though I admit that years of experience and studying are required) and if you can use it relatively well you can write safe code without much trouble and you can also have a very high (higher than Rust) level of control seamlessly at the same time. I don't know many people with similar preferences, but most of them do game development, if that helps to contextualize a bit. There safety is not as important and development speed is much more important than for other applications.

simiones 4y ago
> It's not as hard to use correctly as people pretend it is (though I admit that years of experience and studying are required) The original statement and the one in parens are directly at odds with each other. If every C++ dev requires years of experience and studying to use correctly, it follows that they have left years worth of code that is not done correctly in their wake. Also, no other (non-esoteric) language requires this high a barrier to write correctly. > if you can use it relatively well you can write safe code without much trouble And yet there isn't a single large C++ project that doesn't suffer from violations of memory safety - the one class of bugs that we know how to eliminate completely, if using a proper runtime system.
- menaerus 4y ago
  > violations of memory safety - the one class of bugs that we know how to eliminate completely, Do we? Why exactly do we need sanitizers in Rust then?

batty_alex 4y ago

Ultimately, I'll use what I have to use. I, personally, don't like Rust's syntax and will miss the static inheritance of templates. There's a lot I won't miss, on the other hand My biggest issue with most Rust posts is that they set up strawman C++ arguments (that are usually just C code targeting a C++ compiler). I'm sold on all the idea behind Rust and making sure that programmers can't just easily drop down to insecure parts of a language - I just don't think we should be shaming good C++ codebases because we want Rust to "win."