3 ms·

Because they're 70x less likely to create an executable? [ducks for cover]

bheadmaster 3y ago
Because they're 70x less likely to get to the point where their program compiles successfully. (only half-joking...)
qsort 3y ago
I mean, yes, literally. As much as the "rust for everything" folks are annoying, wrong programs not compiling is the entire point of having a powerful type system correctly leveraged. This is the kind of task where rust truly shines. ease of programming != ease of making undetected mistakes
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  “The safest program is the one that doesn't compile”
  - smaudet 3y ago
    I think it is a separate study whether developers find it easier to actually use, things like environments being equal. I remember another study which showed that actually, most computer programmjng languages today are objectively terrible in terms of legibility and usability, the alternative was some idealized language that allowed effective communication to occur. A safe program is not necessarily one that won't compile, if the lack of functionality incurs some danger on its own. I suspect that a majority of the peanut gallery is rather lazy, or unwilling, or economically unmotivated to put forth the proper effort (and it is the last category that deserves the harshest punishment, where a wasteful and harmful situation is actively encouraged).
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  > ease of programming != ease of making undetected mistakes Disagree. GCed languages prevent the majority of errors the higher complexity of Rust unloads on the programmer to solve by wrestling with its syntax. So this is only a plus for Rust, if the small performance advantage over, say, Go, actually matters in an application, which is rarely ever the case in most software written.
  - cyber_kinetist 3y ago
    Yup, and if you actually meet a use-case where Rust has a major performance advantage above Go, typically you’re already too deep into the low-level details of optimization that you’ll constantly fight with the borrow checker or just scatter unsafe all over your code.
    - baq 3y ago
      This is just not true. The experience is typical if you know how to solve your problem in a GCed language and the solution is to solve problems the Rust way, primarily by using handles (and/or arenas) instead of references.
  - swsieber 3y ago
    I'm actually a really big fan of affine types and adts with great pattern matching. The performance is nice too, but I stayed for all the other nice bits that are put together really well (except async, but eventually...). Rust has been my favorite language by far to refactor in.
  - qsort 3y ago
    We aren't really disagreeing. Forcing Rust into a domain where a GC'd language is more than enough offers absolutely zero advantages (yes, you'll have no memory safety issues, but neither you would have had you used Python or Java or Go or whatever), and it's the kind of obnoxious overzealousness that I'm denouncing. If you're using Rust to write web services you're just wasting your time, I agree with that. But if the alternative would be C or C++, Rust is at least worth consideration. Ironically, those are domains where you'll have to use a lot of unsafe and/or limit yourself to a subset of Rust, but it's still a nice incremental improvement.
    - usrbinbash 3y ago
      > Forcing Rust into a domain where a GC'd language is more than enough offers absolutely zero advantages (yes, you'll have no memory safety issues, but neither you would have had you used Python or Java or Go or whatever), and it's the kind of obnoxious overzealousness that I'm denouncing. It is refreshing to see that other people share this point of view. I guess we are not disagreeing after all.
- throwuwu 3y ago
  It’s rather self defeating though isn’t it?
anon23432343 3y ago
Because they are still compiling? [ducks for cover]
CoastalCoder 3y ago
Nah, it's because they're 70x more likely to get their vulnerabilities via crate supply chain attacks! [pulled off stage with a cain]

Because they're 70x less likely to get to the point where their program compiles successfully. (only half-joking...)

I mean, yes, literally. As much as the "rust for everything" folks are annoying, wrong programs not compiling is the entire point of having a powerful type system correctly leveraged. This is the kind of task where rust truly shines. ease of programming != ease of making undetected mistakes

littlestymaar 3y ago
“The safest program is the one that doesn't compile”
- smaudet 3y ago
  I think it is a separate study whether developers find it easier to actually use, things like environments being equal. I remember another study which showed that actually, most computer programmjng languages today are objectively terrible in terms of legibility and usability, the alternative was some idealized language that allowed effective communication to occur. A safe program is not necessarily one that won't compile, if the lack of functionality incurs some danger on its own. I suspect that a majority of the peanut gallery is rather lazy, or unwilling, or economically unmotivated to put forth the proper effort (and it is the last category that deserves the harshest punishment, where a wasteful and harmful situation is actively encouraged).
usrbinbash 3y ago
> ease of programming != ease of making undetected mistakes Disagree. GCed languages prevent the majority of errors the higher complexity of Rust unloads on the programmer to solve by wrestling with its syntax. So this is only a plus for Rust, if the small performance advantage over, say, Go, actually matters in an application, which is rarely ever the case in most software written.
- cyber_kinetist 3y ago
  Yup, and if you actually meet a use-case where Rust has a major performance advantage above Go, typically you’re already too deep into the low-level details of optimization that you’ll constantly fight with the borrow checker or just scatter unsafe all over your code.
  - baq 3y ago
    This is just not true. The experience is typical if you know how to solve your problem in a GCed language and the solution is to solve problems the Rust way, primarily by using handles (and/or arenas) instead of references.
- swsieber 3y ago
  I'm actually a really big fan of affine types and adts with great pattern matching. The performance is nice too, but I stayed for all the other nice bits that are put together really well (except async, but eventually...). Rust has been my favorite language by far to refactor in.
- qsort 3y ago
  We aren't really disagreeing. Forcing Rust into a domain where a GC'd language is more than enough offers absolutely zero advantages (yes, you'll have no memory safety issues, but neither you would have had you used Python or Java or Go or whatever), and it's the kind of obnoxious overzealousness that I'm denouncing. If you're using Rust to write web services you're just wasting your time, I agree with that. But if the alternative would be C or C++, Rust is at least worth consideration. Ironically, those are domains where you'll have to use a lot of unsafe and/or limit yourself to a subset of Rust, but it's still a nice incremental improvement.
  - usrbinbash 3y ago
    > Forcing Rust into a domain where a GC'd language is more than enough offers absolutely zero advantages (yes, you'll have no memory safety issues, but neither you would have had you used Python or Java or Go or whatever), and it's the kind of obnoxious overzealousness that I'm denouncing. It is refreshing to see that other people share this point of view. I guess we are not disagreeing after all.
throwuwu 3y ago
It’s rather self defeating though isn’t it?

anon23432343 3y ago

Because they are still compiling? [ducks for cover]

CoastalCoder 3y ago

Nah, it's because they're 70x more likely to get their vulnerabilities via crate supply chain attacks! [pulled off stage with a cain]