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I also have done rapid prototyping in Python and Rust, and have started only using Rust for such projects. - Tooling and packaging are just better. I find myse

I also have done rapid prototyping in Python and Rust, and have started only using Rust for such projects. - Tooling and packaging are just better. I find myself fighting Python sometimes when setting up testing with pytest, or packaging with poetry/pdm. This overhead is eliminated with Cargo. - I like to write small PoCs for complicated data models, to show how they interact before integrating the concepts into a larger system. I use to do this in Python, but switched to Rust. Python's poor typehinting makes it very hard to know when the concept I'm implementing actually doesn't work. Instead I have to write tons of unit tests to validate it, which ends up taking much longer than using the typesystem as a form of unit testing, and then writing a few logic validating tests. - Large refactorings are much easier in Rust. This is absolutely critical for rapid prototyping, because it's common to rip out large systems. The typesystem tends to point me to every area of the codebase I need to worry about. I've started considering it a code smell if related functionality isn't evident through the type system. - At least in my experience, it's easier to organically grow a codebase. I feel comfortable using a ton of `unwrap`s and `todo!`s in my codebase, because it's easy to grep for them and retrofit proper error handling. I can change a function's type to include a `Result` and the typesystem will direct me to every location I need to update to properly implement error handling. Most languages I work with I feel I must do everything roughly correctly from the beginning. Rust makes me comfortable hacking stuff together, because there's a clean way to slowly remove the tech debt. Hopefully that gives you some idea why Rust can actually be an amazing prototyping language. It can be hard to see when you're still learning the language, but once you have, you rarely run into weird lifetime compiler errors. It really is a language that teaches the programmer.

epiccoleman 3y ago
> Tooling and packaging are just better. I find myself fighting Python sometimes when setting up testing with pytest, or packaging with poetry/pdm. This overhead is eliminated with Cargo. Python's package / project management story is seriously abysmal compared to its competitors. It's crazy that for a language with as much adoption the best we have is poetry. Adding and isolating project dependencies should not be a difficult thing to do, it should be first class in any serious language like it is in node, ruby, elixir, rust, etc etc etc.
- stmblast 3y ago
  I think they are making steps with Pipfiles, but yeah it's definitely not great. I had to use Python for a hackathon a while ago and it was probably one of the worst experiences I had trying to get set up with my group.
danpalmer 3y ago
Thanks for the input, and I completely agree in the value of all of these aspects, just not so much for prototyping. Tooling and packaging disappear with a sufficiently good prototyping environment (and Cargo doesn't completely eliminate this in my experience anyway), Rust's type system means also working with the borrow checker which is not useful for data modelling (outside of safety concerns), large refactorings aren't necessary in small prototypes (even as things change). You're right that it's easier to grow a codebase organically from a good starting point, and Rust will offer that, but I'm not sure that's the right focus for rapid prototyping. The aim is not about setting solid foundations, it's about testing ideas. Rust is nice, don't get me wrong. I don't disagree with any of these points. I just think that they're all in the mode of improving "traditional" backend development, not in the mode of making rapid prototyping as good as it can be.
- BWStearns 3y ago
  Re data modeling: If you’re using copilot or something similar I’ve found it really fast to drop in a comment with a sample of the data and then quickly crank out the appropriate types. It doesn’t get them all perfect in one shot usually but it reduces the overhead enough to make it effectively free when considering the safety and refactoring benefits.

epiccoleman 3y ago

> Tooling and packaging are just better. I find myself fighting Python sometimes when setting up testing with pytest, or packaging with poetry/pdm. This overhead is eliminated with Cargo. Python's package / project management story is seriously abysmal compared to its competitors. It's crazy that for a language with as much adoption the best we have is poetry. Adding and isolating project dependencies should not be a difficult thing to do, it should be first class in any serious language like it is in node, ruby, elixir, rust, etc etc etc.

stmblast 3y ago
I think they are making steps with Pipfiles, but yeah it's definitely not great. I had to use Python for a hackathon a while ago and it was probably one of the worst experiences I had trying to get set up with my group.

danpalmer 3y ago

Thanks for the input, and I completely agree in the value of all of these aspects, just not so much for prototyping. Tooling and packaging disappear with a sufficiently good prototyping environment (and Cargo doesn't completely eliminate this in my experience anyway), Rust's type system means also working with the borrow checker which is not useful for data modelling (outside of safety concerns), large refactorings aren't necessary in small prototypes (even as things change). You're right that it's easier to grow a codebase organically from a good starting point, and Rust will offer that, but I'm not sure that's the right focus for rapid prototyping. The aim is not about setting solid foundations, it's about testing ideas. Rust is nice, don't get me wrong. I don't disagree with any of these points. I just think that they're all in the mode of improving "traditional" backend development, not in the mode of making rapid prototyping as good as it can be.

BWStearns 3y ago
Re data modeling: If you’re using copilot or something similar I’ve found it really fast to drop in a comment with a sample of the data and then quickly crank out the appropriate types. It doesn’t get them all perfect in one shot usually but it reduces the overhead enough to make it effectively free when considering the safety and refactoring benefits.