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> Rust is definitely not generally used by people who would otherwise use a scripting language. I fail to see why pythonists or rubyist couldn't use Rust. On t

by aikah 11y ago

> Rust is definitely not generally used by people who would otherwise use a scripting language. I fail to see why pythonists or rubyist couldn't use Rust. On the contrary Rust has more semantics that are closer to these languages than Go has.

jerf 11y ago
"On the contrary Rust has more semantics that are closer to these languages than Go has." Uh... goodness gracious no. Going from Python to Go is a bit of a learning experience, and you might lose some features you're used to while gaining some new ones you're not very used to, but it's not too big a deal. Going from Python to Rust is halfway as hard as going from Python to Haskell. Radically different philosophies, radically different semantics (GC to no GC is shocking enough, but Rust takes "no GC" to new heights of foreignness). The first program a Pythonista writes in Go will pretty much work. The first program a Pythonista writes in Rust will explode into a half-page compiler error discussing concepts they've never heard of before. None of this is a criticism of Rust... I applaud Rust for getting itself a good distance away from Python! In 40 years I think "imperative languages with no built-in ownership concepts" will be regarded in much the same way we regard line numbers today... "How did you ever use that? Are you serious? Who would ever think that was a good idea?" (Well, you had to be there...) But in the meantime, it's no contest... Go is way closer to Python than Rust is, and yeah, to some extent I personally consider that a criticism of Go. (I like Go for work, but to some extent I see it as a last-generation final refinement of its ideas, whereas Rust is a one of the first usable languages of the next generation. Both have their place. I suppose that doubles as my own explanation of why they aren't competitors, or at least, not direct competitors.)

by aikah 11y ago

jerf 11y ago

"On the contrary Rust has more semantics that are closer to these languages than Go has." Uh... goodness gracious no. Going from Python to Go is a bit of a learning experience, and you might lose some features you're used to while gaining some new ones you're not very used to, but it's not too big a deal. Going from Python to Rust is halfway as hard as going from Python to Haskell. Radically different philosophies, radically different semantics (GC to no GC is shocking enough, but Rust takes "no GC" to new heights of foreignness). The first program a Pythonista writes in Go will pretty much work. The first program a Pythonista writes in Rust will explode into a half-page compiler error discussing concepts they've never heard of before. None of this is a criticism of Rust... I applaud Rust for getting itself a good distance away from Python! In 40 years I think "imperative languages with no built-in ownership concepts" will be regarded in much the same way we regard line numbers today... "How did you ever use that? Are you serious? Who would ever think that was a good idea?" (Well, you had to be there...) But in the meantime, it's no contest... Go is way closer to Python than Rust is, and yeah, to some extent I personally consider that a criticism of Go. (I like Go for work, but to some extent I see it as a last-generation final refinement of its ideas, whereas Rust is a one of the first usable languages of the next generation. Both have their place. I suppose that doubles as my own explanation of why they aren't competitors, or at least, not direct competitors.)