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Still sitting on the fence as to which language I should pick up on next - the only contenders are C++11 and Rust. How does Rust compare with C++11 as a langua

Still sitting on the fence as to which language I should pick up on next - the only contenders are C++11 and Rust. How does Rust compare with C++11 as a language? C++11 seems to (in some ways) have caught up with what Rust has to offer (compared to older C++ versions) e.g. smart pointers, concurrency and regexes part of the standard library

pcwalton 12y ago
Rust is memory-safe; C++11 is not.
Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
C++ is useful when learning Rust since a lot of documentation assumes the reader is familiar with C++ and there’s plenty of C++ documentation that has no pre-requisites.
- jmgrosen 12y ago
  Hmm. I learned Rust without any C++ knowledge (though I did have a fair amount of experience with C), and it was pretty easy. Recently I've had to start writing some C++ (to my dismay), and it has not been so easy... the language is really complex.
  - wycats 12y ago
    I think things have changed :) Steve Klabnik has been doing a ton of work on the docs, and that has brought a lot of "coming from an HLL" perspective to them.
    - jmgrosen 12y ago
      Hm, I learned it more than a year ago now (and have kept up), so it was before Steve's time :) Also, I'm coming mainly from a C background, not higher-level language.
      - steveklabnik 12y ago
        Well, before my time being paid anyway :)
ranran876 12y ago
I'd definitely pick C++11 unless you need to use Rust. Rust is inherently memory safe - however in practical terms this isn't important for most applications. If you are writing security critical applications Rust will provide you with some very important guarantees (ie. there are certain mistakes which are inherently not possible in the language). C++ doesn't really guarantee anything and if you're an idiot you can shoot yourself in the face. However in practical terms memory management in C++11 is very straightforwards and C++11 compliant code (ie. using the STL and not writing it like C) is very safe and clean. You're not mucking with raw pointers anymore The main issue I see is that Rust is still in early development. It may or may not get "big" in the coming years. And library support is ... lacking In contrast C++ has the STL and boost and every library under the sun. I haven't working with a lot of other languages extensively, but I've never seen anything as clean, robust and thorough as the STL and boost. C++ will remain relevant for a long long time. If Rust takes off in a big way, you'll be well positioned to jump ship.
- hadoukenio 12y ago
  Wow, that was a great comment and exactly the type of info I was after. I think (coming from a dynamic language world) the memory safeness is what pulls me towards Rust. But from what you say and what I've read elsewhere, that was old-style C++ and not C++1[17]. Thanks!
  - Shamanmuni 12y ago
    Read what the other commenters are pointing out. Maybe the situation is better in C++ now than it was before, but it doesn't mean you can't shoot yourself in the foot, specially for a beginner. Rust was built with safety in mind from the start, there are errors you can make in C++ that the Rust compiler simply won't let. My advice is, if you're learning it for work, then go with C++. Even if it succeeds, it will take some years for Rust to be mainstream and as pointed out the library support is great. If you're learning it for fun or for the sake of learning something new. Then Rust is a very nice and promising language bringing things from functional languages that C++ lacks and offering very interesting tooling around it. Whatever you choose, after you feel confident with one go and learn the other as it will probably give a better perspective in the strengths and/or weaknesses of both.
BruceIV 12y ago
C++11 is still C++ though. I've been writing pretty much exclusively C++11 for the last year, and, while they've added a lot of very nice features and I find it painful to go back to C++03, it's still a huge language with lots of hoary edge cases and everything and the kitchen sink built in (now with rvalue reference and move semantics for extra verbosity!). I haven't touched Rust since 0.7 (where I abandoned it after filing two bugs on the project before I even got argument parsing working), but it's the most promising of the new batch of languages in my mind, and I have some side projects in mind I'd like to try when 1.0 comes out.
lmm 12y ago
Why are those your only choices? What makes your problem unsuited to e.g. Nimrod?

pcwalton 12y ago

Rust is memory-safe; C++11 is not.

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago

C++ is useful when learning Rust since a lot of documentation assumes the reader is familiar with C++ and there’s plenty of C++ documentation that has no pre-requisites.

jmgrosen 12y ago
Hmm. I learned Rust without any C++ knowledge (though I did have a fair amount of experience with C), and it was pretty easy. Recently I've had to start writing some C++ (to my dismay), and it has not been so easy... the language is really complex.
- wycats 12y ago
  I think things have changed :) Steve Klabnik has been doing a ton of work on the docs, and that has brought a lot of "coming from an HLL" perspective to them.
  - jmgrosen 12y ago
    Hm, I learned it more than a year ago now (and have kept up), so it was before Steve's time :) Also, I'm coming mainly from a C background, not higher-level language.
    - steveklabnik 12y ago
      Well, before my time being paid anyway :)

ranran876 12y ago

I'd definitely pick C++11 unless you need to use Rust. Rust is inherently memory safe - however in practical terms this isn't important for most applications. If you are writing security critical applications Rust will provide you with some very important guarantees (ie. there are certain mistakes which are inherently not possible in the language). C++ doesn't really guarantee anything and if you're an idiot you can shoot yourself in the face. However in practical terms memory management in C++11 is very straightforwards and C++11 compliant code (ie. using the STL and not writing it like C) is very safe and clean. You're not mucking with raw pointers anymore The main issue I see is that Rust is still in early development. It may or may not get "big" in the coming years. And library support is ... lacking In contrast C++ has the STL and boost and every library under the sun. I haven't working with a lot of other languages extensively, but I've never seen anything as clean, robust and thorough as the STL and boost. C++ will remain relevant for a long long time. If Rust takes off in a big way, you'll be well positioned to jump ship.

hadoukenio 12y ago
Wow, that was a great comment and exactly the type of info I was after. I think (coming from a dynamic language world) the memory safeness is what pulls me towards Rust. But from what you say and what I've read elsewhere, that was old-style C++ and not C++1[17]. Thanks!
- Shamanmuni 12y ago
  Read what the other commenters are pointing out. Maybe the situation is better in C++ now than it was before, but it doesn't mean you can't shoot yourself in the foot, specially for a beginner. Rust was built with safety in mind from the start, there are errors you can make in C++ that the Rust compiler simply won't let. My advice is, if you're learning it for work, then go with C++. Even if it succeeds, it will take some years for Rust to be mainstream and as pointed out the library support is great. If you're learning it for fun or for the sake of learning something new. Then Rust is a very nice and promising language bringing things from functional languages that C++ lacks and offering very interesting tooling around it. Whatever you choose, after you feel confident with one go and learn the other as it will probably give a better perspective in the strengths and/or weaknesses of both.

BruceIV 12y ago

C++11 is still C++ though. I've been writing pretty much exclusively C++11 for the last year, and, while they've added a lot of very nice features and I find it painful to go back to C++03, it's still a huge language with lots of hoary edge cases and everything and the kitchen sink built in (now with rvalue reference and move semantics for extra verbosity!). I haven't touched Rust since 0.7 (where I abandoned it after filing two bugs on the project before I even got argument parsing working), but it's the most promising of the new batch of languages in my mind, and I have some side projects in mind I'd like to try when 1.0 comes out.

lmm 12y ago

Why are those your only choices? What makes your problem unsuited to e.g. Nimrod?