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Rust is actually quite suitable for a number of domains where it was never intended to excel. Writing web service backends is one domain where Rust absolutely

Rust is actually quite suitable for a number of domains where it was never intended to excel. Writing web service backends is one domain where Rust absolutely kicks ass. I would choose Rust/(Actix or Axum) over Go or Flask any day. The database story is a little rough around the edges, but it's getting better and SQLx is good enough for me. edit: The downvoters are missing out.

benwilber0 2y ago
Tokio + Axum + SQLx has been a total game-changer for me for web dev. It's by far the most productive I've been with any backend web stack.
- echelon 2y ago
  People that haven't tried this are downvoting with prejudice, but they just don't know. Rust is an absolute gem at web backend. An absolute fucking gem.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    We know, it stil isn't at Spring/ASP.NET level, coupled with Scala/Kotlin/F#.
    - cies 2y ago
      I hate Spring(Boot): too much magic due to overuse of annotations. On the JVM I'd prefer Kotlin/http4k/SQLDelight any day over {Java,Kotlin}/Spring(Boot)/{Hibernate,sql-in-strings}.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Because macro magic, or compiler plugins, is so much better, I guess.
        cies 2y ago
        What do you mean? Where are the "macro magic or compiler plugins"?
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Most Rust frameworks, which was the point of this thread, > Rust is an absolute gem at web backend. An absolute fucking gem.
      - koakuma-chan 2y ago
        Nothing beats vertx on JVM!
  - gh0stcat 2y ago
    Curious, do you mind going into more detail on why?
- koakuma-chan 2y ago
  I prefer rusqlite over SQLx; the latter is too bloated.
palata 2y ago
To me, web dev really sounds like the one place where everything works and it's more a question of what is in fashion. Java, Ruby, Python, PHP, C, C++, Go, Rust, Scala, Kotlin, probably even Swift? And of course NodeJS was made for that, right? I am absolutely convinced I can find success story of web backends built with all those languages.
- echelon 2y ago
  Perhaps. But a comparable Rust backend stack produces a single binary deployable that can absorb 50,000 QPS with no latency caused by garbage collection. You get all of that for free. The type system and package manager are a delight, and writing with sum types results in code that is measurably more defect free than languages with nulls.
  - aquariusDue 2y ago
    Yep, that's precisely it! When dealing with other languages I miss the "match" keyword and being able to open a block anywhere. Sure, sometimes Rust allows you to write terse abominations if you don't exercise a dose of caution and empathy for future maintainers (you included). Other than the great developer experience in tooling and language ergonomics (as in coherent features not necessarily ease of use) the reason I continue to put up with the difficulties of Rust's borrow checker is because I feel I can work towards mastering one language and then write code across multiple domains AND at the end I'll have an easy way to share it, no Docker and friends needed. But I don't shy away from the downsides. Rust loads the cognitive burden at the ends. Hard as hell in the beginning when learning it and most people (me included) bounce from it for the first few times unless they have C++ experience (from what I can tell). At the middle it's a joy even when writing "throwaway" code with .expect("Lol oops!") and friends. But when you get to the complex stuff it becomes incredibly hard again because Rust forces you to either rethink your design to fit the borrow checker rules or deal with unsafe code blocks which seem to have their own flavor of C++ like eldritch horrors. Anyway, would *I* recommend Rust to everyone? Nah, Go is a better proposition for a most bang for your buck language, tooling and ecosystem UNLESS you're the kind that likes to deal with complexity for the fulfilled promise of one language for almost anything. In even simpler terms Go is good for most things, Rust can be used for everything. Also stuff like Maud and Minijinja for Rust are delights on the backend when making old fashioned MPA. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

benwilber0 2y ago

Tokio + Axum + SQLx has been a total game-changer for me for web dev. It's by far the most productive I've been with any backend web stack.

echelon 2y ago
People that haven't tried this are downvoting with prejudice, but they just don't know. Rust is an absolute gem at web backend. An absolute fucking gem.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  We know, it stil isn't at Spring/ASP.NET level, coupled with Scala/Kotlin/F#.
  - cies 2y ago
    I hate Spring(Boot): too much magic due to overuse of annotations. On the JVM I'd prefer Kotlin/http4k/SQLDelight any day over {Java,Kotlin}/Spring(Boot)/{Hibernate,sql-in-strings}.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Because macro magic, or compiler plugins, is so much better, I guess.
      - cies 2y ago
        What do you mean? Where are the "macro magic or compiler plugins"?
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Most Rust frameworks, which was the point of this thread, > Rust is an absolute gem at web backend. An absolute fucking gem.
    - koakuma-chan 2y ago
      Nothing beats vertx on JVM!
- gh0stcat 2y ago
  Curious, do you mind going into more detail on why?
koakuma-chan 2y ago
I prefer rusqlite over SQLx; the latter is too bloated.

palata 2y ago

To me, web dev really sounds like the one place where everything works and it's more a question of what is in fashion. Java, Ruby, Python, PHP, C, C++, Go, Rust, Scala, Kotlin, probably even Swift? And of course NodeJS was made for that, right? I am absolutely convinced I can find success story of web backends built with all those languages.

echelon 2y ago
Perhaps. But a comparable Rust backend stack produces a single binary deployable that can absorb 50,000 QPS with no latency caused by garbage collection. You get all of that for free. The type system and package manager are a delight, and writing with sum types results in code that is measurably more defect free than languages with nulls.
- aquariusDue 2y ago
  Yep, that's precisely it! When dealing with other languages I miss the "match" keyword and being able to open a block anywhere. Sure, sometimes Rust allows you to write terse abominations if you don't exercise a dose of caution and empathy for future maintainers (you included). Other than the great developer experience in tooling and language ergonomics (as in coherent features not necessarily ease of use) the reason I continue to put up with the difficulties of Rust's borrow checker is because I feel I can work towards mastering one language and then write code across multiple domains AND at the end I'll have an easy way to share it, no Docker and friends needed. But I don't shy away from the downsides. Rust loads the cognitive burden at the ends. Hard as hell in the beginning when learning it and most people (me included) bounce from it for the first few times unless they have C++ experience (from what I can tell). At the middle it's a joy even when writing "throwaway" code with .expect("Lol oops!") and friends. But when you get to the complex stuff it becomes incredibly hard again because Rust forces you to either rethink your design to fit the borrow checker rules or deal with unsafe code blocks which seem to have their own flavor of C++ like eldritch horrors. Anyway, would *I* recommend Rust to everyone? Nah, Go is a better proposition for a most bang for your buck language, tooling and ecosystem UNLESS you're the kind that likes to deal with complexity for the fulfilled promise of one language for almost anything. In even simpler terms Go is good for most things, Rust can be used for everything. Also stuff like Maud and Minijinja for Rust are delights on the backend when making old fashioned MPA. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.