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I have taken the time to learn rust and you're absolutely right. It's a very complex, design-by-committee language. It has brilliant tooling, and is still much

I have taken the time to learn rust and you're absolutely right. It's a very complex, design-by-committee language. It has brilliant tooling, and is still much less complex than it's design-by-committee competitor C++, but it will never be easy to learn.

worik 1y ago
There is a trade off. Rust gave us fast, and safe. It did not give us "easy to learn". I think it is a very good example of why "design by committee" is good. The "Rust Committee" has done a fantastic job Thank you They say a camel is a horse designed by a committee (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_camel_is_a_horse_designed_by_a_committee https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_camel_is_a_horse_designed_b...) Yes: * Goes twice as far as a horse * On half the food and a quarter the water of a horse * Carries twice as much as a horse Yes, I like design by committee. I have been on some very good, and some very bad committees, but there is nothing like the power of a good committee Thank you Rust!
- LAC-Tech 1y ago
  It's just a programming language, not a religion.
  - psychoslave 1y ago
    Well, it does look like there is a will to mimic religious social structure in the community, be it as a satiric form of it. I mean, I guess they purposefully named their pancakes cargo, as in "cargo cult", didn't they? Rustacean, rustomicon, and the other few words I saw leak out of the community all seem to go in the same spirit. I'm almost surprised they didn't went with more fancy terms for these core concepts of ownership and borrowing. Perl was also full of religious stuff like blessing your object, though Larry was actually more in the "true devot" side of the line.
    - conorjh 1y ago
      the dogmatic culture would probably be my first suggestion. i always ask why are there any CVEs for rust if its "memory-safe" but never get an answer suprisingly
      - psychoslave 1y ago
        CVE is not only for memory leak though, while eliminating (or even drastically reducing) such a class of issue is a fair point to advertise, it should not be confused as a magic safety facility that makes go away any security concern.
      - steveklabnik 1y ago
        > i always ask why are there any CVEs for rust if its "memory-safe" but never get an answer suprisingly The answer is straightforward: bugs exist. Even in formally proven software, mistakes can be made. Nothing is perfect. Additionally, memory safety is a property that when people talk about it, they mean by default. All languages contain some amount of non-proven unsafe code in their implementation, or via features like FFI. Issues can arise when these two worlds interact. Yet, real-world usage shows that these cases are quite few compared to languages without these defaults. The exceptions are also a source of the CVEs you’re talking about.
rat87 1y ago
its not design by committee its design by Pull request It doesn't have a central https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life like python used to so people suggest and implement features as a group, with code counting for a lot (although theoretical issues with safety/design also matter) as opposed to companies arguing for their pet features endlessly without much difference. Look at how long it takes C++ to get any new features.
- rafram 1y ago
  > Look at how long it takes C++ to get any new features. I’m not sure “it doesn’t have enough features” has ever been anyone’s complaint about C++.
  - rat87 1y ago
    There are definitely some c++ features that some people have been clamoring for for over a decade Pattern matching for one(although to be fair that's been in rust from the start)
yodsanklai 1y ago
> It's a very complex I find it relatively simple. Much simpler than C++ (obviously). For someone who can write C++ and has some experience wth OCaml/Haskell/F#, it's not a hard language.
- namuol 1y ago
  Sure, C++ has a more complex spec, nobody can argue against that. Complex is the wrong word. Baffling is a better word. Or counterintuitive, or cumbersome. If “easy enough for someone with experience in C++, OCaml, Haskell, and F#” were the same thing as “not hard” then I don’t think this debate would come up so frequently.
  - estebank 1y ago
    What you call "baffling", I call "different". Being different doesn't mean it's "complex" or even "hard" (in isolation), but it can be baffling, in the same way that driving on the other side of the road for the first time can feel baffling (but doesn't mean it's "wrong").
  - yodsanklai 1y ago
    Of course, this is very subjective. For someone who only knows python or javascript at a superficial level, Rust may seem out of reach. But if you're ok with the most common programming paradigms, I don't find Rust baffling. I mean, you can't expect to learn a new language in a few days, it'll always take a bit of work. My feeling is that people complaining of the language being hard aren't putting the effort. My experience is that Rust is a relatively small language which doesn't introduce a lot of new concepts. The syntax is quite intuitive, and the compiler super helpful. The borrower checker was the only new thing for me. I'm not an expert at all, but my experience is that after spending 2 weeks full-time reading books and experimenting, I was able to work professionally with the language without feeling too much friction. On the other hand, after spending much more time on C++, I don't feel really comfortable with the language.
    - icedchai 1y ago

worik 1y ago

There is a trade off. Rust gave us fast, and safe. It did not give us "easy to learn". I think it is a very good example of why "design by committee" is good. The "Rust Committee" has done a fantastic job Thank you They say a camel is a horse designed by a committee (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_camel_is_a_horse_designed_by_a_committee https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_camel_is_a_horse_designed_b...) Yes: * Goes twice as far as a horse * On half the food and a quarter the water of a horse * Carries twice as much as a horse Yes, I like design by committee. I have been on some very good, and some very bad committees, but there is nothing like the power of a good committee Thank you Rust!

LAC-Tech 1y ago
It's just a programming language, not a religion.
- psychoslave 1y ago
  Well, it does look like there is a will to mimic religious social structure in the community, be it as a satiric form of it. I mean, I guess they purposefully named their pancakes cargo, as in "cargo cult", didn't they? Rustacean, rustomicon, and the other few words I saw leak out of the community all seem to go in the same spirit. I'm almost surprised they didn't went with more fancy terms for these core concepts of ownership and borrowing. Perl was also full of religious stuff like blessing your object, though Larry was actually more in the "true devot" side of the line.
  - conorjh 1y ago
    the dogmatic culture would probably be my first suggestion. i always ask why are there any CVEs for rust if its "memory-safe" but never get an answer suprisingly
    - psychoslave 1y ago
      CVE is not only for memory leak though, while eliminating (or even drastically reducing) such a class of issue is a fair point to advertise, it should not be confused as a magic safety facility that makes go away any security concern.
    - steveklabnik 1y ago
      > i always ask why are there any CVEs for rust if its "memory-safe" but never get an answer suprisingly The answer is straightforward: bugs exist. Even in formally proven software, mistakes can be made. Nothing is perfect. Additionally, memory safety is a property that when people talk about it, they mean by default. All languages contain some amount of non-proven unsafe code in their implementation, or via features like FFI. Issues can arise when these two worlds interact. Yet, real-world usage shows that these cases are quite few compared to languages without these defaults. The exceptions are also a source of the CVEs you’re talking about.

rat87 1y ago

its not design by committee its design by Pull request It doesn't have a central https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life like python used to so people suggest and implement features as a group, with code counting for a lot (although theoretical issues with safety/design also matter) as opposed to companies arguing for their pet features endlessly without much difference. Look at how long it takes C++ to get any new features.

rafram 1y ago
> Look at how long it takes C++ to get any new features. I’m not sure “it doesn’t have enough features” has ever been anyone’s complaint about C++.
- rat87 1y ago
  There are definitely some c++ features that some people have been clamoring for for over a decade Pattern matching for one(although to be fair that's been in rust from the start)

yodsanklai 1y ago

> It's a very complex I find it relatively simple. Much simpler than C++ (obviously). For someone who can write C++ and has some experience wth OCaml/Haskell/F#, it's not a hard language.

namuol 1y ago
Sure, C++ has a more complex spec, nobody can argue against that. Complex is the wrong word. Baffling is a better word. Or counterintuitive, or cumbersome. If “easy enough for someone with experience in C++, OCaml, Haskell, and F#” were the same thing as “not hard” then I don’t think this debate would come up so frequently.
- estebank 1y ago
  What you call "baffling", I call "different". Being different doesn't mean it's "complex" or even "hard" (in isolation), but it can be baffling, in the same way that driving on the other side of the road for the first time can feel baffling (but doesn't mean it's "wrong").
- yodsanklai 1y ago
  Of course, this is very subjective. For someone who only knows python or javascript at a superficial level, Rust may seem out of reach. But if you're ok with the most common programming paradigms, I don't find Rust baffling. I mean, you can't expect to learn a new language in a few days, it'll always take a bit of work. My feeling is that people complaining of the language being hard aren't putting the effort. My experience is that Rust is a relatively small language which doesn't introduce a lot of new concepts. The syntax is quite intuitive, and the compiler super helpful. The borrower checker was the only new thing for me. I'm not an expert at all, but my experience is that after spending 2 weeks full-time reading books and experimenting, I was able to work professionally with the language without feeling too much friction. On the other hand, after spending much more time on C++, I don't feel really comfortable with the language.
  - icedchai 1y ago