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Let me clarify that (1) I've written a decent amount of Rust before giving up on it (2) I'm not a systems programmer, all of the problems I work on can be solve

Let me clarify that (1) I've written a decent amount of Rust before giving up on it (2) I'm not a systems programmer, all of the problems I work on can be solved with higher level garbage collected languages. The thing that I find baffling is when people start throwing Rust at problems that don't need it like backend services and APIs, CLI tooling, games. I'll take your word that the complexity is necessary in systems programming - the problem is that people are carrying that complexity everywhere else too, and it doesn't seem like a tradeoff that's worth it. Rust doesn't gradually expose you to concepts depending on your use case for the language, once something is needed for the lowest level use case, it becomes additional complexity which contaminates all other use cases.

frou_dh 2y ago
If we judge by results and not some notion of appropriateness then in my experience a lot of the miscellaneous CLI software written in Rust is great and high-quality from a user perspective. So if their authors are indeed making things harder than they need to for themselves, then it must just show how capable they are that they're able to get great results anyway.
biorach 2y ago
> I'm not a systems programmer, all of the problems I work on can be solved with higher level garbage collected languages Great. Use those languages. Don't criticise rust for not being one of those languages > people are carrying that complexity everywhere else too, and it doesn't seem like a tradeoff that's worth it. Yes, there are people who have used Rust in places where a higher level language would be more appropriate. However rust has characteristics beyond raw performance that make it often a compelling choice in areas outside of systems programming. The complexity of the language brings benefits that may or may not suit a particular use case. Any criticism of necessity or otherwise of its complexity is just noise without talking about what you want to use it for.
- sk11001 2y ago
  > Great. Use those languages. I do. I'm not criticizing Rust, I'm failing to understand the people who choose to use it in places where it doesn't belong. Over time that's becoming an increasingly larger part of all the people who use it.
  - steveklabnik 2y ago
    Your value judgments are not everyone else’s value judgements. That’s really all it comes down to. Just because you consider something inappropriate does not mean that that is a universal truth.
    - sk11001 2y ago
      > Your value judgments are not everyone else’s value judgements. I opened with this, yes. I think people who use Rust for everyhing have poor taste.
      - steveklabnik 2y ago
        It sounds like you do understand, then.
  - lowbloodsugar 2y ago
    I mean, sure, people do do that. But it seems like the use-case described here is one where the performance and robustness of Rust would be appropriate. And while I agree there are certainly people looking to push the boundaries, often too far, where Rust makes sense, the language and its ecosystem are also becoming more proficient.
mustache_kimono 2y ago
> Rust doesn't gradually expose you to concepts depending on your use case for the language, once something is needed for the lowest level use case, it becomes additional complexity which contaminates all other use cases. I guess, once you know it, the linked problem really doesn't seem that complex. Once you know it, you know the idiomatic solution will look like this commenter's: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472874 If it were any simpler to write, I'm not sure you'd have any confidence the code was doing what it should be doing/what you thought was on the label. But I also strongly disagree with the quoted notion. One would usually ease their way into returning iterators. Much more likely is one would do the simple thing and allocate an empty Vec for awhile, or an Option<Vec<T>>, like the author even tried first, and then decide you want to be fast or, more likely, ask whether this is what was holding you back, and try to decide how to do that. > It's complexity for its own sake. I do agree that Rust can be complex, but this is not complex. This is just the Rust way. Right now, complex Rust, to me, is refactoring the code of others. The code of others has a certain weight/concreteness in Rust that sometimes makes it hard to mold into something else. Rust makes small refactorings a breeze. It makes some large refactorings feel almost impossible.
- inferiorhuman 2y ago
  Vec::new doesn't allocate anything, so by extension an empty vec won't allocate anything. Option<Vec> doesn't really save (or cost) you anything here either.

frou_dh 2y ago

If we judge by results and not some notion of appropriateness then in my experience a lot of the miscellaneous CLI software written in Rust is great and high-quality from a user perspective. So if their authors are indeed making things harder than they need to for themselves, then it must just show how capable they are that they're able to get great results anyway.

biorach 2y ago

> I'm not a systems programmer, all of the problems I work on can be solved with higher level garbage collected languages Great. Use those languages. Don't criticise rust for not being one of those languages > people are carrying that complexity everywhere else too, and it doesn't seem like a tradeoff that's worth it. Yes, there are people who have used Rust in places where a higher level language would be more appropriate. However rust has characteristics beyond raw performance that make it often a compelling choice in areas outside of systems programming. The complexity of the language brings benefits that may or may not suit a particular use case. Any criticism of necessity or otherwise of its complexity is just noise without talking about what you want to use it for.

sk11001 2y ago
> Great. Use those languages. I do. I'm not criticizing Rust, I'm failing to understand the people who choose to use it in places where it doesn't belong. Over time that's becoming an increasingly larger part of all the people who use it.
- steveklabnik 2y ago
  Your value judgments are not everyone else’s value judgements. That’s really all it comes down to. Just because you consider something inappropriate does not mean that that is a universal truth.
  - sk11001 2y ago
    > Your value judgments are not everyone else’s value judgements. I opened with this, yes. I think people who use Rust for everyhing have poor taste.
    - steveklabnik 2y ago
      It sounds like you do understand, then.
- lowbloodsugar 2y ago
  I mean, sure, people do do that. But it seems like the use-case described here is one where the performance and robustness of Rust would be appropriate. And while I agree there are certainly people looking to push the boundaries, often too far, where Rust makes sense, the language and its ecosystem are also becoming more proficient.

mustache_kimono 2y ago

> Rust doesn't gradually expose you to concepts depending on your use case for the language, once something is needed for the lowest level use case, it becomes additional complexity which contaminates all other use cases. I guess, once you know it, the linked problem really doesn't seem that complex. Once you know it, you know the idiomatic solution will look like this commenter's: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472874 If it were any simpler to write, I'm not sure you'd have any confidence the code was doing what it should be doing/what you thought was on the label. But I also strongly disagree with the quoted notion. One would usually ease their way into returning iterators. Much more likely is one would do the simple thing and allocate an empty Vec for awhile, or an Option<Vec<T>>, like the author even tried first, and then decide you want to be fast or, more likely, ask whether this is what was holding you back, and try to decide how to do that. > It's complexity for its own sake. I do agree that Rust can be complex, but this is not complex. This is just the Rust way. Right now, complex Rust, to me, is refactoring the code of others. The code of others has a certain weight/concreteness in Rust that sometimes makes it hard to mold into something else. Rust makes small refactorings a breeze. It makes some large refactorings feel almost impossible.

inferiorhuman 2y ago
Vec::new doesn't allocate anything, so by extension an empty vec won't allocate anything. Option<Vec> doesn't really save (or cost) you anything here either.