Comment by simonask
3 months ago
I don't know man, Rust's borrowing semantics are pretty new under the sun, and actually do change the way you think about software. It's a pretty momentous paradigm shift.
Zig is nice too, but it's not that.
3 months ago
I don't know man, Rust's borrowing semantics are pretty new under the sun, and actually do change the way you think about software. It's a pretty momentous paradigm shift.
Zig is nice too, but it's not that.
To call Rust syntax beautiful is a stretch. It seems that way in the beginning but then quickly devolves into a monstrosity when you start doing more complex things.
Zig on the other specifically addresses syntax shortcomings in part of C. And it does it well. That claim of rust making C more safe because it’s more readable applies to Zig more than it does to Rust.
I feel like the reason the rust zealots lobby like crazy to embed rust everywhere is twofold. One is that they genuinely believe in it and the other is that they know that if other languages that address one of the main rust claims without all the cruft gains popularity they lose the chance of being permanently embdedded in places like the kernel. Because once they’re in it’s a decade long job market
> they know that if other languages that address one of the main rust claims without all the cruft gains popularity they lose the chance of being permanently embdedded in places like the kernel
First of all, I'm really opposed to saying "the kernel". I am sure you're talking about the Linux kernel, but there are other kernels (BSD, Windows etc.) that are certainly big enough to not call it "the" kernel, and that may also have their own completely separate "rust-stories".
Secondly, I think the logic behind this makes no sense, primarily because Rust at this point is 10 years old from stable and almost 20 years old from initial release; the adoption into the Linux kernel wasn't exactly rushed. Even if it was, why would Rust adoption in the Linux kernel exclude adoption of another language as well, or a switch to another, if it's better? The fact that Rust was accepted at all to begin with aside from C disproves the assumption, because clearly that kernel is open for "better" languages.
The _simplest_ explanation to why Rust has succeeded is that it's solves actual problems, not that "zealots" are lobbying for it to ensure they "have a job".
> Rust at this point is 10 years old from stable
Rust is not stable even today! There is no spec, no alternative implementations, no test suite... "Stable" is what "current compiler compiles"! Existing code may stop compiling any day....
Maybe in 10 years it may become stable, like other "booring" languages (Golang and Java).
Rust stability is why Linus opposes its integration into kernel.
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> To call Rust syntax beautiful is a stretch.
I don’t see where the comment you’re replying to does that (was it edited?). Their comment says nothing about aesthetics.
Higher up
> Rust is the small, beautiful language hiding inside of Modern C++
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> To call Rust syntax beautiful is a stretch.
I'm no Rust fan, but beauty of a syntax is always in the eye of the beholder.
I personally find Go, C++ and Python's syntax beautiful. All can be written in very explicit or expressive forms. On the other hand, you can hide complexity to a point.
If you are going to do complex things in a compact space, you'll asymptotically approach Perl or PCRE. It's maths.
All code is maths, BTW.
> if other languages that address one of the main rust claims without all the cruft
But regardless of how much one likes Zig, it addresses none of the problems that Rust seeks to solve. It's not a replacement for Rust at all, and isn't suitable for any of the domains where Rust excels.
> and isn't suitable for any of the domains where Rust excels.
That's a pretty bold claim since Zig is specifically designed for systems programming, low level stuff, network services, databases (think Tigerbeetle). It's not memory safe like Rust is, but it comes with constructs that make it simple to build largely memory safe programs.
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For my part, I don't know why, but Zig's syntax feels wrong to me. I don't even know why. I really want to like its syntax, as Zig seems really promising to me, but I just don't, which makes it not very enjoyable for me to write.
I don't know if it's my lack of practice, but I never felt the same about, say, Rust's syntax, or the syntax of any other language for that matter.
> I feel like
Needless flame bait follows.
Kind of, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_(programming_language)
What it has achieved is making affine types something mainstream developers would care about.
That kind of is a bit load bearing. The differences are pretty huge. Plus, borrow checker is nowhere to be found. Cyclone is more C with a few tweaks (tagged unions, generics, regions, etc.).
Borrow checking is basically a synonym for affine type system.
The same outcome can be achieved via affine types, linear types, effects, dependent types, regions, proofs, among many other CS research in type systems.
Which is why following Rust's success, plenty of managed languages are now going through the evolution step to combine automatic resource management with improved type systems.
Taking the one that best approaches their current design.
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There were languages with lifetimes and borrowing mechanics before Rust. Rust packages these mechanics in a nice way. Just like Zig encodes many niceties in a useful C language (comptime, simple cross-compilation, stdlib).
Which ones?? Before Rust, to my knowledge, no language had an actually practical way to use lifetimes and borrow-checking so that both memory safety and concurrency safety (data races, which is huge) were solved, even though the concepts were known in research. Doing the actual work to make it practical is what makes the difference between some obscure research topic and a widely used language that actually solves serious problems in the real world.
Cyclone for one, which AT&T created exactly to replace C.
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> actually do change the way you think about software. It's a pretty momentous paradigm shift.
That's true for people who doesn't read and think about the code they write. For people who think from the perspective of a computer, Rust is "same checks, but forced by the compiler".
Make no mistake, to err is human, but Rust doesn't excite me that much.