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> My feeling about Rust is that it's a playground language where many ideas are tried and insights can be formed No, from the very beginning this has been an e

by pornel 2y ago

> My feeling about Rust is that it's a playground language where many ideas are tried and insights can be formed No, from the very beginning this has been an explicit non-goal of Rust. http://venge.net/graydon/talks/intro-talk-2.pdf http://venge.net/graydon/talks/intro-talk-2.pdf Rust has used reaserch from 80s and 90s languages. The result may seem novel because the programming language theory and languages that Rust copied are not well known among systems programmers. The ideas are old, Rust added the polish and packaging of the features with a focus on practical non-reaserch use. Rust isn't that new any more. 1.0 has been released almost a decade ago.

anonfordays 2y ago
>Rust isn't that new any more. 1.0 has been released almost a decade ago. And yet I have to use nightly to get practically anything to work.
- steveklabnik 2y ago
  What features do you rely on? This is effectively the opposite of my experience, which is why I am curious: even our embedded OS at work is almost free of nightly features, and everything higher in the stack has been on stable for a long time. Always interested in learning how experiences differ!
  - anonfordays 2y ago
    >is almost free of nightly features So it's not free of said features and you have to use nightly? >What features do you rely on? Several of these highlighted here:https://blog.rust-lang.org/2024/02/19/2023-Rust-Annual-Survey-2023-results.html https://blog.rust-lang.org/2024/02/19/2023-Rust-Annual-Surve... Something like 30% of users were on nightly a few years ago. Not sure if that's still true, but it is for me.
    - steveklabnik 2y ago
      Yes, for that OS we’re using asm_const, which is almost stable, naked functions, and used_with_arg, which is linker related. We also use array_methods but that could be polyfilled, if the other three were stable.
    - pornel 2y ago
      crates.io sees about 13% of requests from nightly compilers, although that may be biased by CI tests that just check for future compatibility rather than needing nightly features. https://lib.rs/stats#rustc-usage https://lib.rs/stats#rustc-usage For application development nightly hasn't been necessary for many years now. Places where people use nightly are increasingly just nice to haves and small optimizations.

by pornel 2y ago

anonfordays 2y ago

>Rust isn't that new any more. 1.0 has been released almost a decade ago. And yet I have to use nightly to get practically anything to work.

steveklabnik 2y ago
What features do you rely on? This is effectively the opposite of my experience, which is why I am curious: even our embedded OS at work is almost free of nightly features, and everything higher in the stack has been on stable for a long time. Always interested in learning how experiences differ!
- anonfordays 2y ago
  >is almost free of nightly features So it's not free of said features and you have to use nightly? >What features do you rely on? Several of these highlighted here:https://blog.rust-lang.org/2024/02/19/2023-Rust-Annual-Survey-2023-results.html https://blog.rust-lang.org/2024/02/19/2023-Rust-Annual-Surve... Something like 30% of users were on nightly a few years ago. Not sure if that's still true, but it is for me.
  - steveklabnik 2y ago
    Yes, for that OS we’re using asm_const, which is almost stable, naked functions, and used_with_arg, which is linker related. We also use array_methods but that could be polyfilled, if the other three were stable.
  - pornel 2y ago
    crates.io sees about 13% of requests from nightly compilers, although that may be biased by CI tests that just check for future compatibility rather than needing nightly features. https://lib.rs/stats#rustc-usage https://lib.rs/stats#rustc-usage For application development nightly hasn't been necessary for many years now. Places where people use nightly are increasingly just nice to haves and small optimizations.