Comment by mustache_kimono
12 hours ago
> C will continue to be used because it always has been and always will be available everywhere
Yes, you can use it everywhere. Is that what you consider a success?
12 hours ago
> C will continue to be used because it always has been and always will be available everywhere
Yes, you can use it everywhere. Is that what you consider a success?
I'm curious as to which other metric you'd use to define successful? If it actual usage, C still wins. Number of new lines pushed into production each year, or new project started, C is still high up the list, would be my guess.
Languages like Rust a probably more successful in terms of age vs. adoption speed. There's just a good number of platforms which aren't even supported, and where you have no other choice than C. Rust can't target most platforms, and it compiles on even less. Unless Linux want's to drop support for a good number of platforms, Rust adoption can only go so far.
> I'm curious as to which other metric you'd use to define successful? If it actual usage, C still wins.
Wait, wait, you can use C everywhere, but if absolute lines of code is the metric, people seem to move away from C as quickly as possible (read: don't use C) to higher level languages that clearly aren't as portable (Ruby, Python, Java, C#, C++, etc.)?
> Rust can't target most platforms, and it compiles on even less. Unless Linux want's to drop support for a good number of platforms, Rust adoption can only go so far.
Re: embedded, this is just terribly short sighted. Right now, yes, C obviously has the broadest possible support. But non-experimental Linux support starts today. GCC is still working on Rust support and rust_codegen_gcc is making in roads. And one can still build new LLVM targets. I'd be interested to hear what non-legacy platforms actually aren't supported right now.
But the real issue is that C has no adoption curve. It only has ground to lose. Meanwhile Rust is, relatively, a delight to use, and offers important benefits. As I said elsewhere: "Unless I am wrong, there is still lots of COBOL we wish wasn't COBOL? And that reality doesn't sound like a celebration of COBOL?" The future looks bright for Rust, if you believe as I do, we are beginning to demand much more from our embedded parts.
Now, will Rust ever dominate embedded? Will it be used absolutely everywhere? Perhaps not. Does that matter? Not AFAIAC. Winning by my lights is -- using this nice thing rather than this not so nice thing. It's doing interesting things where one couldn't previously. It's a few more delighted developers.
I'd much rather people were delighted/excited about a tech/a language/a business/a vibrant community, than, whatever it is, simply persisted. Because "simply persisted", like your comment above, is only a measure of where we are right now.
Another way to think of this is -- Perl is also everywhere. Shipped with every Linux distro and MacOS, probably to be found somewhere deep inside Windows too. Now, is Perl, right now, a healthy community or does it simply persist? Is its persistence a source of happiness or dread?
Why do you think people are delighted/excited about Rust? Some people are, but I’m sure plenty of people are about C and Perl is well. Some people isn’t most people and certainly not all people.
... yes?