Comment by dathinab | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dathinab | Hacker News Reader

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> more capable end of the spectrum

Actually rust is a grate language for programmers of the less capable end of the spectrum.

While it allows clever abstractions it generally discouraged and recommended to write simple code.

The borrow checker might seem like a clever abstraction, but it's just a build in code analytics tool you should use anyway when using C or C++ or well any language, and it generally nudges you to better structured code.

> Then, as now, they were people who hadn't had much contact with the average software developer and with the realities of software mass-production.

Except that more than just a few decisions in the rust design process where strongly influenced by the feedback of average developers, including people which just got started with programming.

Wrt. C++ I can completely agree, it's a completely over engineered language with endless gotchas with silently sneak into you code without you noticing and potentially causing UB if compiled with some compiler in some optimization levels for some target. Making such bugs completely bonkers to track down.

On the other hand in (safe) rust many of the problems user have come from the language helping you to not run into any of this and other bugs.

And all "hidden" complexity rust has is normally designed in a way so that you don't need to know it to use rust or even things related to it as long as you don't want to create some low level primitives which involve unsafe code.

To put it simply - Rust empowers a master like dtolnay to create something as powerful, zero cost, fast and easy to use as serde … while also enabling a noob like me to write simple, relatively bug free code.

As a bonus I can pull in serde with one line and use it without worrying about shooting myself in the foot.

That is exactly what we thought about C++. We, too, believed that C++ fixed all those problems with both low-level programming in C, and the "messy" programming of the "application generators" of the time; it lets you clearly express intent and yet helps you avoid shooting yourself in the foot as happens in C. Anyone who truly believes that Rust is a great language for the average applications developer, clearly has not met one.

I think you have a point that yes, programming languages depend on the domain a program is in. If the program only handles up to 10k customers, it can be programmed in javascript and can indeed keep its entire database in RAM. sqlite even has a mode for this. A LOT of custom software is in this "small" domain. However, when you get to millions or billions, maybe you have to optimize and create a backend. What should this backend be written in? Previously the answer might have been C++. But now it's Rust.

Personally, being a Rust enthusiast, I think that Rust's benefits don't just unleash when you think about performance, but also when you think about large codebases. Such codebases are usually the scene for refactorings. In a dynamic language like js, these are extremely hard to pull off. In Rust, the compiler won't stop yelling at you until you have cleanly finished the refactor. I love refactoring Rust codebases, even ones I didn't write, while in C++ or other languages it's extremely annoying.

And note that while C++ enthusiasts might have believed that everything should be C++, not everyone followed them. Many people still stayed with C. Many still do even with Rust around. But there is a small group of people for whom Rust is such a great improvement that they take the portability cost and switch to Rust. Linus is heavily anti C++ for example, but he's open to adding Rust to the kernel.

> However, when you get to millions or billions, maybe you have to optimize and create a backend. What should this backend be written in? Previously the answer might have been C++. But now it's Rust.

Now it's Rust based on what? Uber backend is almost entirely built in Go. And so are many other services handling billion plus requests a day written in other languages.

Perhaps Rust advocates know something that Uber engineering does not.

Go usage proves my point. It's statically compiled. In fact, Google wanted a language in the same performance class as C++ but that was easier to teach to college graduates. Rust is also such a language. Furthermore, when Uber got started, Rust hasn't even been available.

Rust being easier to teach than C++ is a very low bar to clear.

And for the record, when Uber got started Go wasn't available either.

> However, when you get to millions or billions, maybe you have to optimize and create a backend. What should this backend be written in? Previously the answer might have been C++. But now it's Rust.

Neither Facebook, nor Instagram or Slack are primarily built on C++ or Rust though. And many other products that I can't as confidently remember from the top of my head aren't.

Facebook originally did compile their PHP to C++ though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_for_PHP

Only later did they introduce Hack and HHVM, which compiles a PHP dialect in a just in time fashion. My point is that once you reach scale, and your computer bill becomes significant enough, you'll really want to use efficient languages.

> Anyone who truly believes that Rust is a great language for the average applications developer, clearly has not met one.

What's a better general-purpose language for this mythical "average" developer? Java/C#? Rust has the same level of memory safety, and adds data-race safety that these languages do not have out of the box. Go is in the exact same boat, btw - memory safe for sequential code, but concurrent code is tricky since unsafe shared access is ubiquitous in real-world Go code. Haskell, Agda and Idris could provide more safety but are not approachable to the "average" dev.

> Haskell, Agda and Idris could provide more safety but are not approachable to the "average" dev.

You (rightly, I think) place Idris (and Agda, although that's more a proof assistant than a PL) beyond the reach of the average developer, and also, apparently, Haskell -- arguably a simpler language than Rust, but never mind -- but not Rust. And that's my point and, I guess, our point of disagreement. If you think that, on that spectrum between, say, Python and Idris, Rust is at a good level for the average application developer to the point where maintaining high-level applications written in Rust would ever be cost effective, then I think you are out of touch with the realities of the software industry and the economic forces that shape it. I thought the exact same thing as you twenty five years ago: C++ was obviously the right language for the average developer -- even more so than, I don't know, Delphi or Visual Basic -- wasn't it?

> What's a better general-purpose language for this mythical "average" developer?

I don't believe any low-level language will be cost-effective for application development for the foreseeable future, if ever, and the average developer is anything but mythical (I mean, embodied as a single person, perhaps, but I'm talking about teams).

> Rust has the same level of memory safety

It doesn't (due to much more prevalent reliance on unsafe as well as FFI), but that's very much beside the point because, as you acknowledge, safety is not what it's about.

> Haskell -- arguably a simpler language than Rust

From a PL research point of view maybe.

But from a POV of what is simpler to use for a average or new programmer, Haskell is far worse as far as I can tell.

> due to much more prevalent reliance on unsafe as well as FFI

Where? In embedded programming? Or programming from primitives (which I would argue a average programmer never should do, there are existing libraries)?

In some use-cases you always end up with a FFI, but that is also true for other languages.

Besides that usage of unsafe is both strongly discouraged and uncommon.

There are a lot of rust use cases where using unsafe code is never necessary to a point where people simple ban any direct usage of unsafe code in their project.

simplicty is important, but i believe it is not the most important metric for a PL and have no problem with complex PLs. the question; is it worth the trouble? c++s failure is not the complexity but c++ being one of the least orthogonal languages out there. in c++ you are able to compose two great things/ideas (other than my only options are c and c++ this is the biggest reason i prefer c++ over c) yet the end result is not more but less.

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