3 ms·

"I tend to agree about the "async contamination" problem. The "async" system is optimized for someone who needs to run a very large web server, with a huge numb

"I tend to agree about the "async contamination" problem. The "async" system is optimized for someone who needs to run a very large web server, with a huge number of clients sending in requests. I've been pushing back against it creeping into areas that don't really need it." 100% this. As I say elsewhere in these threads: Rust is the language that Tokio ate. It isn't even just async viral-chain-effect, it's that on the whole crates for one async runtime are not even compatible with those of another, and so it's all really just about tokio. Which sucks, if you're doing, y'know, systems programming or embedded (or games). Because tokio has no business in those domains.

dboreham 3y ago
Disappointing to hear this after battling the same nonsense in JS for years.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  It's just endemic to the industry. Framework-itis
- otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  Rust is a language made and used by Dunning-Kruger people who violently react to having to learn the prior art. What did you really expect?
  - vacuity 3y ago
    Rust's async/await design makes a lot of sense when you consider its primary goals (C interop, low level control, zero cost abstractions, etc.). Sure, perhaps most of us should be using a language with different constraints as opposed to Rust.
hgomersall 3y ago
It does in my domain of systems programming with async data handling. Tokio works like a dream - slipping into the background and just working so I can concentrate on the business logic.
- throwaway17_17 3y ago
  I know this is a late reply to your post, but your wording prompted a question. I will preface by saying this is not some sort of semantic flamebait, it is also not supposed to be a gatekeeping exercise. You state your domain is systems programming, but then talk about the event loop and scheduler for your program as ancillary details and say that your concentration is on business logic. I tend to view systems programming as development of things that have no business logic, because that is the domain of application programming. Also, I tend to think that a defining feature of systems programming is development that can not just accept a default solution to something as impactful as an event loop/scheduler/executer, but have to focus deeply on those aspects of a program that are the crux of its actual computational operation and interactions between those parts. In the context of games, the systems programming is the renderer, audio engine, physics calculations, and things like a task system and dispatcher/scheduler, etc. As compared to the actual application specifics of levels, art, dialogue, interactions, UI, etc which to me are not systems programming. With that said, how do you define systems programming? I’m really interested in how various devs tend to view the ‘cut-off’ between systems and application development. Sometimes I’m pretty sure I am on the extreme end of disjointness of the two and non-accepting of any ‘business logic’ type development qualifying as systems programming. TL;DR - What is your definition of systems programming and do you include things like ‘business logic’ within that definition?
  - hgomersall 3y ago
    Even within what you discuss, things like renderers, audio engines and physics calculations have business logic, which I interpret as being the logic pertinent to their specific tasks, as opposed to support logic. Clearly these sorts of terms are heavily overloaded, so please don't too hung up the precise term I used. That said, I think the view of systems programming is more relevant. My understanding is essentially the same as Wikipedia: "systems programming aims to produce software and software platforms which provide services to other software, are performance constrained, or both". I don't see business logic excluded from that definition. For context, the area I use it is in direct interaction with an FPGA in the middle layer of a bigger system. The software acts as a performance critical controller of the FPGA and data marshalling system, controlling the DMAs and shunting the data into the network subsystem. Another bit of the system on different hardware then receives the data and does some performance critical signal processing before passing the result to the application layer. The "systems programming" stuff is responsible for translating high level application API commands into low level FPGA control and low level FPGA data and feedback into high level application structures. Async works really well on the data handling. I have a full back pressure chain from the application, across the network, across the DMA subsystem right down to the FPGA. It also allows careful pinning of different tasks to different cores with pinned runtimes, which is important in maximising the network throughout on the resource limited cpu cores. Rust async is great for this kind of stuff. I read a post a while ago, which I annoyingly can't find anymore, in which the author was using custom reactor and executor to hide cache latency. It was really beautiful and incredibly simple and annoyingly forgotten by me (!).

dboreham 3y ago

Disappointing to hear this after battling the same nonsense in JS for years.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
It's just endemic to the industry. Framework-itis
otabdeveloper4 3y ago
Rust is a language made and used by Dunning-Kruger people who violently react to having to learn the prior art. What did you really expect?
- vacuity 3y ago
  Rust's async/await design makes a lot of sense when you consider its primary goals (C interop, low level control, zero cost abstractions, etc.). Sure, perhaps most of us should be using a language with different constraints as opposed to Rust.

hgomersall 3y ago

It does in my domain of systems programming with async data handling. Tokio works like a dream - slipping into the background and just working so I can concentrate on the business logic.

throwaway17_17 3y ago
I know this is a late reply to your post, but your wording prompted a question. I will preface by saying this is not some sort of semantic flamebait, it is also not supposed to be a gatekeeping exercise. You state your domain is systems programming, but then talk about the event loop and scheduler for your program as ancillary details and say that your concentration is on business logic. I tend to view systems programming as development of things that have no business logic, because that is the domain of application programming. Also, I tend to think that a defining feature of systems programming is development that can not just accept a default solution to something as impactful as an event loop/scheduler/executer, but have to focus deeply on those aspects of a program that are the crux of its actual computational operation and interactions between those parts. In the context of games, the systems programming is the renderer, audio engine, physics calculations, and things like a task system and dispatcher/scheduler, etc. As compared to the actual application specifics of levels, art, dialogue, interactions, UI, etc which to me are not systems programming. With that said, how do you define systems programming? I’m really interested in how various devs tend to view the ‘cut-off’ between systems and application development. Sometimes I’m pretty sure I am on the extreme end of disjointness of the two and non-accepting of any ‘business logic’ type development qualifying as systems programming. TL;DR - What is your definition of systems programming and do you include things like ‘business logic’ within that definition?
- hgomersall 3y ago
  Even within what you discuss, things like renderers, audio engines and physics calculations have business logic, which I interpret as being the logic pertinent to their specific tasks, as opposed to support logic. Clearly these sorts of terms are heavily overloaded, so please don't too hung up the precise term I used. That said, I think the view of systems programming is more relevant. My understanding is essentially the same as Wikipedia: "systems programming aims to produce software and software platforms which provide services to other software, are performance constrained, or both". I don't see business logic excluded from that definition. For context, the area I use it is in direct interaction with an FPGA in the middle layer of a bigger system. The software acts as a performance critical controller of the FPGA and data marshalling system, controlling the DMAs and shunting the data into the network subsystem. Another bit of the system on different hardware then receives the data and does some performance critical signal processing before passing the result to the application layer. The "systems programming" stuff is responsible for translating high level application API commands into low level FPGA control and low level FPGA data and feedback into high level application structures. Async works really well on the data handling. I have a full back pressure chain from the application, across the network, across the DMA subsystem right down to the FPGA. It also allows careful pinning of different tasks to different cores with pinned runtimes, which is important in maximising the network throughout on the resource limited cpu cores. Rust async is great for this kind of stuff. I read a post a while ago, which I annoyingly can't find anymore, in which the author was using custom reactor and executor to hide cache latency. It was really beautiful and incredibly simple and annoyingly forgotten by me (!).