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What did the Rust community expect to happen if they so strongly and often claimed that Rust is easy to learn and user-friendly? And how did we get from that t

by blub 2y ago

What did the Rust community expect to happen if they so strongly and often claimed that Rust is easy to learn and user-friendly? And how did we get from that to “for some people, some languages may never fully agree with their preferred style of writing code”? If a C++ programmer (ideal Rust learner) says four years in that the ergonomics of Rust are bad, then based on my own experience I will believe them. I don’t write something to see if it compiles either, I design every single line of code. But with Rust (and a lesser extent C++) a lot of that design is for memory safety and not necessary for the algorithms.

rapsey 2y ago
Rust is easy to learn and user friendly. But if you are stuck in your ways and insist on writing code exactly like you did in another language you will have a hard time. This is true for every language on earth. Rust will refuse to compile, whereas other languages give you much more freedom to not use them as they are meant to. > If a C++ programmer (ideal Rust learner) There is no ideal learner.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > Rust is easy to learn and user friendly. But if you are stuck in your ways (...) It's high time that people in the Rust community such as you just stop with this act. The Rust community itself already answered that they find "Rust too difficult to learn or learning will take too much time" as a concern to not use Rust. The community also flagged Rust being too difficult as one of the main reasons they stopped using Rust. 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...
  - rapsey 2y ago
    Anyone who has managed to become proficient in C++ is smart enough to be proficient in Rust. The only too difficult part is adapting to the rust way of doing things and some refuse to.
    - throwaway81523 2y ago
      There is a saying among Haskellers that "Haskell has the steepest unlearning curve". Sounds like Rust is similar.
    - 7bit 2y ago
      Everybody who has managed to become proficient building a school is smart enough to be proficient in building a library. So building libraries must be easy, that's totally why you can become an architect over night ... What a stupid argument you delivered
    - chipdart 2y ago
      > Anyone who has managed to become proficient in C++ is smart enough to be proficient in Rust. I'm not sure you're paying attention. The people who are saying Rust is too hard are the Rust community itself. They said so in Rusty's annual survey. The ones who participate in it are Rust users who feel strongly about the topic to participate in their governance. It's Rust users who say Rust is too hard. There is no way around this fact.
    - sfink 2y ago
      > Anyone who has managed to become proficient in C++ is smart enough to be proficient in Rust. I agree completely. But I'd reword your statement slightly as "Anyone who has managed to become proficient in the language that is notorious for being one of the most complicated and convoluted languages in existence, with the most footguns per line of code and a CVE record that proves its difficulty, ..." It changes the conclusion just a tad.
- 7bit 2y ago
  Rust is not easy to learn. Stop saying that. It is hard. It is harder than C#, harder than Python, harder than Java, harder than PHP, harder than JS, Harder than TS. Saying it is easy to learn is just delusional and does a disservice to the language. Rust has many advantages, but trying to get people learning the language by lying about why they should learn it is just dumb.
- brabel 2y ago
  You just seem to have missed the point the author was making. I will try to clarify it: when you find out that a decision you made early on didn't pan out and you're forced to change the lifetime of some data, this will incur major refactoring in Rust and that will cause you to lose a lot of time. It's nearly impossible to avoid mistakes like this, not because you don't know Rust enough, that's almost completely irrelevant... it's because you just can't predict the direction your design will go to after many iterations and changes in requirements, which are unavoidable in the real world. Replying to that with "Rust is easy to learn" just makes it sound like you didn't even understand what you're trying to reply to.
Ygg2 2y ago
> What did the Rust community expect to happen if they so strongly and often claimed that Rust is easy to learn and user-friendly? No one really claimed it was easy to learn. Find me one Rustacean that claims Rust is as easy as Python/Ruby/Go. But it is higher level language with decent ergonomic and in such way it can be interpreted as user-friendly. > If a C++ programmer (ideal Rust learner) If Java programmer (me) can learn Rust in a year enough to contribute to Servo development, you (ideal Rust learner) should have no problem either. Plus Google saw about 6-month to get people up to speed with Rust.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > No one really claimed it was easy to learn. It's a great example of unintended comedy the fact that the comment right below yours is literally "Rust is easy to learn and user friendly." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42162676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42162676
  - Ygg2 2y ago
    Sure but that's a no one. Same as me. Find someone on Rust team saying that. Or someone teaching Rust constantly. I can see user friendly. It's got a solid ecosystem around it, and compiler is super helpful with errors. But easy to learn it ain't.
tialaramex 2y ago
> C++ programmer (ideal Rust learner) Well there's your problem. Rust does look like a semi-colon language, that's intentional, but if that's all you understand you're probably going to struggle. The "ideal Rust learner" would have an ML, such as Ocaml or F#, maybe some Lisp or a Scheme something like that, as well as a semi-colon language like C or Java not just the weird forced perspective from C++ One experiment I probably won't get to try is to teach Rust as First Language for computer science students. Some top universities (including Oxbridge) teach an ML as first language, but neither teaches Rust because of course Rust is (relatively) new. The idea is, if you teach Rust as first language your students don't have to un-learn things from other languages. You can teach the move assignment semantic not as a weird special case but as it it really is in Rust - the obvious default assignment semantic. I pass a Goose to a function, obviously the Goose is gone, I gave it to the function. Nobody is surprised that when they pass a joint they don't have the joint any more, so why are we surprised when we pass a String to a function and the String is gone now? And once we've seen this, the motivation for borrows (reference types) is obvious, often we don't want to give you the string, we just want to tell you about a string that's still ours. And so on.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > Well there's your problem. Rust does look like a semi-colon language, that's intentional, but if that's all you understand you're probably going to struggle. This is a silly point to make. What makes a C++ programmer a C++ programmer is not an uncanny ability to find a semicolon on the keyboard. It's stuff like using low-level constructs, having a working mental model of how to manage resources at a low level down and how to pass and track ownership of resources across boundaries. This is not a syntax issue. It's absurd. You have people claiming that Rust is the natural progression for C++ programmers because their skillsets, mental models, and application domain overlap, but here are you negating all that and try to portray it as a semicolon issue?
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    Oh! Alas the apparent syntax similarity is misleading. If you prefer imagine I wrote "C-like language" anywhere that I wrote "semi-colon language". It's not really about the semi-colon, indeed the semi-colon isn't even doing the same thing and that's a clue†. You see, the typical semi-colon languages you'll have used such as C++ or Java have these "everything is a machine integer" type systems which were a small step up from the "Who needs a type system" of their predecessors but aren't anywhere close to what you'd expect in an ML or a functional language. So this means there's a substantial learning curve, or, if you try to just keep writing C++ even though you're in Rust, an impedance mismatch. It looks superficially like the thing you're used to, but that's not what it is. † In Rust the semi-colon is turning your expression into a statement, but in the semi-colon languages it's a separator, everything is a statement anyway. So while a rust program might say let x = if k > 3 { plenty(k) } else { too_few() }; in the semi-colon languages there's a whole separate ternary operator provided to do this trick - in fact they don't have any other ternary operators and so they often call this "the" ternary operator which is very funny if you come from a language which has the multiply-accumulate operator...

by blub 2y ago

rapsey 2y ago

Rust is easy to learn and user friendly. But if you are stuck in your ways and insist on writing code exactly like you did in another language you will have a hard time. This is true for every language on earth. Rust will refuse to compile, whereas other languages give you much more freedom to not use them as they are meant to. > If a C++ programmer (ideal Rust learner) There is no ideal learner.

chipdart 2y ago
> Rust is easy to learn and user friendly. But if you are stuck in your ways (...) It's high time that people in the Rust community such as you just stop with this act. The Rust community itself already answered that they find "Rust too difficult to learn or learning will take too much time" as a concern to not use Rust. The community also flagged Rust being too difficult as one of the main reasons they stopped using Rust. 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...
- rapsey 2y ago
  Anyone who has managed to become proficient in C++ is smart enough to be proficient in Rust. The only too difficult part is adapting to the rust way of doing things and some refuse to.
  - throwaway81523 2y ago
    There is a saying among Haskellers that "Haskell has the steepest unlearning curve". Sounds like Rust is similar.
  - 7bit 2y ago
    Everybody who has managed to become proficient building a school is smart enough to be proficient in building a library. So building libraries must be easy, that's totally why you can become an architect over night ... What a stupid argument you delivered
  - chipdart 2y ago
    > Anyone who has managed to become proficient in C++ is smart enough to be proficient in Rust. I'm not sure you're paying attention. The people who are saying Rust is too hard are the Rust community itself. They said so in Rusty's annual survey. The ones who participate in it are Rust users who feel strongly about the topic to participate in their governance. It's Rust users who say Rust is too hard. There is no way around this fact.
  - sfink 2y ago
    > Anyone who has managed to become proficient in C++ is smart enough to be proficient in Rust. I agree completely. But I'd reword your statement slightly as "Anyone who has managed to become proficient in the language that is notorious for being one of the most complicated and convoluted languages in existence, with the most footguns per line of code and a CVE record that proves its difficulty, ..." It changes the conclusion just a tad.
7bit 2y ago
Rust is not easy to learn. Stop saying that. It is hard. It is harder than C#, harder than Python, harder than Java, harder than PHP, harder than JS, Harder than TS. Saying it is easy to learn is just delusional and does a disservice to the language. Rust has many advantages, but trying to get people learning the language by lying about why they should learn it is just dumb.
brabel 2y ago
You just seem to have missed the point the author was making. I will try to clarify it: when you find out that a decision you made early on didn't pan out and you're forced to change the lifetime of some data, this will incur major refactoring in Rust and that will cause you to lose a lot of time. It's nearly impossible to avoid mistakes like this, not because you don't know Rust enough, that's almost completely irrelevant... it's because you just can't predict the direction your design will go to after many iterations and changes in requirements, which are unavoidable in the real world. Replying to that with "Rust is easy to learn" just makes it sound like you didn't even understand what you're trying to reply to.

Ygg2 2y ago

> What did the Rust community expect to happen if they so strongly and often claimed that Rust is easy to learn and user-friendly? No one really claimed it was easy to learn. Find me one Rustacean that claims Rust is as easy as Python/Ruby/Go. But it is higher level language with decent ergonomic and in such way it can be interpreted as user-friendly. > If a C++ programmer (ideal Rust learner) If Java programmer (me) can learn Rust in a year enough to contribute to Servo development, you (ideal Rust learner) should have no problem either. Plus Google saw about 6-month to get people up to speed with Rust.

chipdart 2y ago
> No one really claimed it was easy to learn. It's a great example of unintended comedy the fact that the comment right below yours is literally "Rust is easy to learn and user friendly." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42162676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42162676
- Ygg2 2y ago
  Sure but that's a no one. Same as me. Find someone on Rust team saying that. Or someone teaching Rust constantly. I can see user friendly. It's got a solid ecosystem around it, and compiler is super helpful with errors. But easy to learn it ain't.

tialaramex 2y ago

> C++ programmer (ideal Rust learner) Well there's your problem. Rust does look like a semi-colon language, that's intentional, but if that's all you understand you're probably going to struggle. The "ideal Rust learner" would have an ML, such as Ocaml or F#, maybe some Lisp or a Scheme something like that, as well as a semi-colon language like C or Java not just the weird forced perspective from C++ One experiment I probably won't get to try is to teach Rust as First Language for computer science students. Some top universities (including Oxbridge) teach an ML as first language, but neither teaches Rust because of course Rust is (relatively) new. The idea is, if you teach Rust as first language your students don't have to un-learn things from other languages. You can teach the move assignment semantic not as a weird special case but as it it really is in Rust - the obvious default assignment semantic. I pass a Goose to a function, obviously the Goose is gone, I gave it to the function. Nobody is surprised that when they pass a joint they don't have the joint any more, so why are we surprised when we pass a String to a function and the String is gone now? And once we've seen this, the motivation for borrows (reference types) is obvious, often we don't want to give you the string, we just want to tell you about a string that's still ours. And so on.

chipdart 2y ago
> Well there's your problem. Rust does look like a semi-colon language, that's intentional, but if that's all you understand you're probably going to struggle. This is a silly point to make. What makes a C++ programmer a C++ programmer is not an uncanny ability to find a semicolon on the keyboard. It's stuff like using low-level constructs, having a working mental model of how to manage resources at a low level down and how to pass and track ownership of resources across boundaries. This is not a syntax issue. It's absurd. You have people claiming that Rust is the natural progression for C++ programmers because their skillsets, mental models, and application domain overlap, but here are you negating all that and try to portray it as a semicolon issue?
- tialaramex 2y ago
  Oh! Alas the apparent syntax similarity is misleading. If you prefer imagine I wrote "C-like language" anywhere that I wrote "semi-colon language". It's not really about the semi-colon, indeed the semi-colon isn't even doing the same thing and that's a clue†. You see, the typical semi-colon languages you'll have used such as C++ or Java have these "everything is a machine integer" type systems which were a small step up from the "Who needs a type system" of their predecessors but aren't anywhere close to what you'd expect in an ML or a functional language. So this means there's a substantial learning curve, or, if you try to just keep writing C++ even though you're in Rust, an impedance mismatch. It looks superficially like the thing you're used to, but that's not what it is. † In Rust the semi-colon is turning your expression into a statement, but in the semi-colon languages it's a separator, everything is a statement anyway. So while a rust program might say let x = if k > 3 { plenty(k) } else { too_few() }; in the semi-colon languages there's a whole separate ternary operator provided to do this trick - in fact they don't have any other ternary operators and so they often call this "the" ternary operator which is very funny if you come from a language which has the multiply-accumulate operator...