4 ms·

You're not the only one... it's rather sad and silly but this makes the language quite unpleasant for me as well.

coldtea 13y ago
Maybe they can change it for 1.0? They've already changed all kinds of sigils and special characters they used to use. I wonder what pcwalton thinks about it. (That's one of the things I like about Rust actually, that they really debate what's best, and check alternative implementations and discard stuff if they feel the need, even listening to community criticism (unlike some other recenty popular language designers who get in a "you're doing it wrong" defensive mode)).
- anon1385 13y ago
  There was quite a lot of debate about it at the time as far as I recall but the core devs seemed set on it and have since stated that they aren't planing any more syntax changes[1] so I think it's pretty unlikely they will change it now. I think it's an unfortunate choice as well, although mainly because it's not a very visible character. >they really debate what's best, and check alternative implementations and discard stuff if they feel the need, even listening to community criticism (unlike some other recenty popular language designers who get in a "you're doing it wrong" defensive mode) When this kind of debate came up again last year on the mailing list it ended up with the mods threatening to ban people and the list being put on full moderation[2]. Along with rather unfriendly messages from the mods such as: "Normally I would warn about the code of conduct, but tbh, in this case I think [person criticising the syntax] deserved it" and "when you want to shut people down in the future (a rolethat is very much needed given the number of cranks that Rust attracts"[3] It may have come up again since but I unsubscribed from rust-dev at that point. [1] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/006467.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/00... [2] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/006523.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/00... [3] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/006522.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/00...
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Wow, I've check the rust-dev from time to time, and "this week in Rust". I've mostly seen the polite threads it seems, were stuff is discussed and debated. Going to check those links now...
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Having read the thing now, I have to agree with mercurial. The thread started with inane suggestions from someone asking them to copy Clojure's (and Typed Clojure's) syntax. If anything, it went on for too long.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    Well, to be fair, the character who initiated the whole thread comes off as rather obnoxious, occasionally rude and offers clearly unreasonable suggestions such as "remove the templates". All in all, most of the replies I see in this thread from the Rust team show a remarkable patience and take time to justify their current choices.
    - anon1385 13y ago
      >Well, to be fair, the character who initiated the whole thread comes off as rather obnoxious, occasionally rude and offers clearly unreasonable suggestions such as "remove the templates". Sure, I mostly agree with that. I mainly posted the thread to show the initial comment about syntax changes being off the table from now on. I do think allowing posters to violate the mailing list guidelines for civility just because they are defending the Mozilla position against somebody who is being stubborn creates a bad atmosphere. As does calling people 'cranks' because they don't come from the ML world (to me 'crank' implies nutty conspiracy theorist, perhaps it has different meanings elsewhere).
      - AnimalMuppet 13y ago
        Well, "turn it into Lisp" may make one a crank on a Rust mailing list. It's not a conspiracy theory, but within the context, it is nutty... (And "use S-expressions" is pretty close to "turn it into Lisp", at least in terms of syntax.)
- pcwalton 13y ago
  We thought about different alternatives, but nobody came up with anything that looked better. It's important for the sigil to look lightweight, as you tend to type it a lot, especially next to the reference sigil &. If it's something that looks heavyweight, like @ or a keyword, then it just clutters up definitions. You don't want constant strings to look like "&lifetime(static) str" or something, and "&@static str" just looks ugly. Besides, ' suggests "type parameter" to ML users, so there's some precedent.
sltkr 13y ago
To learn something new, you need to get out of your comfort zone, and try to get used to things that might seem "strange" or "unpleasant" at first. Just because the syntax looks odd at first glance, it doesn't mean you can't get used to it in time. If you are so quick to dismissing the language, how are you ever going to learn anything new? Principles aside, I'd expect people on HN to be more familiar with single quote being used as a prefix. After all, that's how you denote symbols and quote things in LISP, Scheme and their variants.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Well, at least in LISP you can use "quote" instead of the single literal quote. And while familiar with quote in Lisps, I mostly code in algol-like languages, so my OCD for balanced quotes come fro that. Imagine a Lisper seeing an unbalanced parenthesis used in the syntax of a new Lisp, to get my pain :-)
portmanteaufu 13y ago
The single quote is used for lifetime declarations and is borrowed from the ML family of programming languages. I'd never seen it before Rust since none of the languages I was familiar with had lifetimes.

Maybe they can change it for 1.0? They've already changed all kinds of sigils and special characters they used to use. I wonder what pcwalton thinks about it. (That's one of the things I like about Rust actually, that they really debate what's best, and check alternative implementations and discard stuff if they feel the need, even listening to community criticism (unlike some other recenty popular language designers who get in a "you're doing it wrong" defensive mode)).

anon1385 13y ago
There was quite a lot of debate about it at the time as far as I recall but the core devs seemed set on it and have since stated that they aren't planing any more syntax changes[1] so I think it's pretty unlikely they will change it now. I think it's an unfortunate choice as well, although mainly because it's not a very visible character. >they really debate what's best, and check alternative implementations and discard stuff if they feel the need, even listening to community criticism (unlike some other recenty popular language designers who get in a "you're doing it wrong" defensive mode) When this kind of debate came up again last year on the mailing list it ended up with the mods threatening to ban people and the list being put on full moderation[2]. Along with rather unfriendly messages from the mods such as: "Normally I would warn about the code of conduct, but tbh, in this case I think [person criticising the syntax] deserved it" and "when you want to shut people down in the future (a rolethat is very much needed given the number of cranks that Rust attracts"[3] It may have come up again since but I unsubscribed from rust-dev at that point. [1] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/006467.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/00... [2] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/006523.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/00... [3] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/006522.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-November/00...
- coldtea 13y ago
  Wow, I've check the rust-dev from time to time, and "this week in Rust". I've mostly seen the polite threads it seems, were stuff is discussed and debated. Going to check those links now...
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Having read the thing now, I have to agree with mercurial. The thread started with inane suggestions from someone asking them to copy Clojure's (and Typed Clojure's) syntax. If anything, it went on for too long.
- mercurial 13y ago
  Well, to be fair, the character who initiated the whole thread comes off as rather obnoxious, occasionally rude and offers clearly unreasonable suggestions such as "remove the templates". All in all, most of the replies I see in this thread from the Rust team show a remarkable patience and take time to justify their current choices.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    >Well, to be fair, the character who initiated the whole thread comes off as rather obnoxious, occasionally rude and offers clearly unreasonable suggestions such as "remove the templates". Sure, I mostly agree with that. I mainly posted the thread to show the initial comment about syntax changes being off the table from now on. I do think allowing posters to violate the mailing list guidelines for civility just because they are defending the Mozilla position against somebody who is being stubborn creates a bad atmosphere. As does calling people 'cranks' because they don't come from the ML world (to me 'crank' implies nutty conspiracy theorist, perhaps it has different meanings elsewhere).
    - AnimalMuppet 13y ago
      Well, "turn it into Lisp" may make one a crank on a Rust mailing list. It's not a conspiracy theory, but within the context, it is nutty... (And "use S-expressions" is pretty close to "turn it into Lisp", at least in terms of syntax.)
pcwalton 13y ago
We thought about different alternatives, but nobody came up with anything that looked better. It's important for the sigil to look lightweight, as you tend to type it a lot, especially next to the reference sigil &. If it's something that looks heavyweight, like @ or a keyword, then it just clutters up definitions. You don't want constant strings to look like "&lifetime(static) str" or something, and "&@static str" just looks ugly. Besides, ' suggests "type parameter" to ML users, so there's some precedent.

sltkr 13y ago

To learn something new, you need to get out of your comfort zone, and try to get used to things that might seem "strange" or "unpleasant" at first. Just because the syntax looks odd at first glance, it doesn't mean you can't get used to it in time. If you are so quick to dismissing the language, how are you ever going to learn anything new? Principles aside, I'd expect people on HN to be more familiar with single quote being used as a prefix. After all, that's how you denote symbols and quote things in LISP, Scheme and their variants.

coldtea 13y ago
Well, at least in LISP you can use "quote" instead of the single literal quote. And while familiar with quote in Lisps, I mostly code in algol-like languages, so my OCD for balanced quotes come fro that. Imagine a Lisper seeing an unbalanced parenthesis used in the syntax of a new Lisp, to get my pain :-)

portmanteaufu 13y ago

The single quote is used for lifetime declarations and is borrowed from the ML family of programming languages. I'd never seen it before Rust since none of the languages I was familiar with had lifetimes.