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Introducing Rust Language Server

internals.rust-lang.org

1–10 of 108 posts

Re: Introducing Rust Language Server

#3
I think the most astonishing thing to me about the Rust language project is not the language it self (sure it's innovative but there's also still a lot of work to be done to make it get out of your way). It's the speed and tenacity with which the project has managed to push development of the supporting tooling. The development tools surrounding a language can often be more important for productivity than the language itself, and it feels like the Rust team and community really get that.

Re: Introducing Rust Language Server

#4
post #3

I think the most astonishing thing to me about the Rust language project is not the language it self (sure it's innovative but there's also still a lot of work to be done to make it get out of your way). It's the speed and tenacity with which the project has managed to push development of the supporting tooling. The development tools surrounding a language can often be more important for productivity than the languag…

I think that's a side effect of making a welcoming community a priority. The Rust Language Server grew out of feedback from the Rust Language Survey, in which many people responded that they wanted good IDE support.

That isn't a glamorous task to work on, especially if you're already comfortable with the level of editor support you have, but it helps bring more people into the community, which has a multiplicative effect.

Re: Introducing Rust Language Server

#5
For anyone interested in similar tools, Microsoft recently published a protocol[1] for this type of service, and an implementation[2] of it for VSCode+NodeJS.

Swift also has a library[3] called SourceKit which does the same thing for Swift – it can run as an out-of-process daemon, and people have written integrations for Atom, Emacs, etc. to get autocomplete, syntax highlighting, def links, etc.

[1]https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocol [2]https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node [3]https://github.com/apple/swift/tree/master/tools/SourceKit

Re: Introducing Rust Language Server

#6

For anyone interested in similar tools, Microsoft recently published a protocol[1] for this type of service, and an implementation[2] of it for VSCode+NodeJS. Swift also has a library[3] called SourceKit which does the same thing for Swift – it can run as an out-of-process daemon, and people have written integrations for Atom, Emacs, etc. to get autocomplete, syntax highlighting, def links, etc. [1] https://github.co…

Indeed, the RLS uses that protocol to communicate with IDEs.

Re: Introducing Rust Language Server

#7

For anyone interested in similar tools, Microsoft recently published a protocol[1] for this type of service, and an implementation[2] of it for VSCode+NodeJS. Swift also has a library[3] called SourceKit which does the same thing for Swift – it can run as an out-of-process daemon, and people have written integrations for Atom, Emacs, etc. to get autocomplete, syntax highlighting, def links, etc. [1] https://github.co…

If it really pushes syntax highlighting to another process and uses JSON for serialization, that is going to impose a cap on editor performance.

Re: Introducing Rust Language Server

#8
post #3

I think the most astonishing thing to me about the Rust language project is not the language it self (sure it's innovative but there's also still a lot of work to be done to make it get out of your way). It's the speed and tenacity with which the project has managed to push development of the supporting tooling. The development tools surrounding a language can often be more important for productivity than the languag…

I think that's a side effect of making a welcoming community a priority. The Rust Language Server grew out of feedback from the Rust Language Survey, in which many people responded that they wanted good IDE support. That isn't a glamorous task to work on, especially if you're already comfortable with the level of editor support you have, but it helps bring more people into the community, which has a multiplicative ef…

I think it's a side effect of having a punishing language. Coding Rust is always described as fighting with the compiler, I don't think Rust would have ever taken off if there weren't great tools to fight the compiler with. I think that's a part of it, anyway.

Re: Introducing Rust Language Server

#9

For anyone interested in similar tools, Microsoft recently published a protocol[1] for this type of service, and an implementation[2] of it for VSCode+NodeJS. Swift also has a library[3] called SourceKit which does the same thing for Swift – it can run as an out-of-process daemon, and people have written integrations for Atom, Emacs, etc. to get autocomplete, syntax highlighting, def links, etc. [1] https://github.co…

The Dart team have done a similar thing

Re: Introducing Rust Language Server

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a side effect of making a welcoming community a priority. The Rust Language Server grew out of feedback from the Rust Language Survey, in which many people responded that they wanted good IDE support. That isn't a glamorous task to work on, especially if you're already comfortable with the level of editor support you have, but it helps bring more people into the community, which has a multiplicative ef…

I think it's a side effect of having a punishing language. Coding Rust is always described as fighting with the compiler, I don't think Rust would have ever taken off if there weren't great tools to fight the compiler with. I think that's a part of it, anyway.

I don't think "fighting the compiler" is an accurate description of the Rust coding experience. There is a learning curve during which you feel like you fight the borrow checker a lot, but once you get it you will find that the compiler is actually helpful.
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