Comment by pjmlp
6 hours ago
The obsession isn't with Rust, the obsession is with Go not being a good programming language and the only reason it took off was thanks to Docker.
So they would probably never rewrite from Python into C or C++, because not cool, too hard kind of motivation, otherwise they would not have picked Go.
So that begs the question, if the obession as you call it, was already a thing back then, would Rust have been the lucky candidate?
It didn't really need Docker to "take off", I'm not even sure if it actually ever did the take off...
It's a language with its pros and cons, I like the simplicity, it's a good choice for services that just expose an API/GRPC/etc... and the performances are not that bad.
This "but rust is faster" obsession often comes from people that don't even know what they are talking about or are even able to consider if thinking about performance make sense for a specific use cases. Sometimes, or at least it did before LLMs, having something simple to modify was more important that chasing supposedly higher performance because the rust people keep blabbering about it.
> would Rust have been the lucky candidate?
Probably not, considering that the author give me a "simple solutions are best" vibe.
That being the case, it would have stayed Python with some C bindings, instead of the cool new Google language still not yet 1.0.
I generally agree with your comments, but do you really think that a language created by such luminaries as Ken Thompson and Rob Pike and endorsed by Google really needed Docker to "take off"?
Yes, see Plan 9, Alef, Inferno and Limbo, such luminaries as Ken Thompson and Rob Pike aren't always right.
As for endorsed by Google, see Dart and Flutter, Android Things, Fuchsia.
Now everything combined, plus Docker and Kubernetes, yes it was definitely a factor.