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Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

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Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#31

Post by mtkd »

stmfd wrote: post #7

I think it has a fair chance (Go is a "systems" language and grew very quickly). I also believe you'll see it pop up in unikernels as well. Why, you ask? Because there's always 1 person that starts a project that gets traction. I don't see it growing and replacing C++ though. I don't think there's much incentive post C++11 to really consider porting anything (even small things) over. Most of the features Rust gets pr…

when I think of all the segfaults I've seen in last few years - it's usually been in some horrible bindings to unsafe C/C++

"if you need segfault protection, you're a bad programmer" is a ridiculous statement - your personal data is one unchecked buffer away from being very public

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#32

Post by objclxt »

sanjeetsuhag wrote: post #19
yitchelle wrote: post #17

Not too sure what is meant by "mainstream" but I can see Rust getting a foothold in certain industry, such as medical, automotive or aerospace. To get there, it will need to be mature and be stable significant enough. It will also need a big player to take that first step and prove it in production. Imagine if Ford mandates its suppliers to use Rust for the software in its car and it faced little problems after a few…

I'm an aviation enthusiast and a CS undergrad. I've always wondered what's different about code written for airplanes. Anybody have any insight ? And is there a modern replacement for ADA?

> I've always wondered what's different about code written for airplanes. Anybody have any insight?

You might be interested in some publicly available coding standards for the Joint Strike Fighter (C++) and the NASA JPL (C):

http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf

http://lars-lab.jpl.nasa.gov/JPL_Coding_Standard_C.pdf

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#33

Post by daenney »

k__ wrote: post #11
peter_retief wrote: post #4

It is

Certainly more then Nim. I'd say, before Rust becomes really mainstream, we have to wait for the current generation of sysdevs to die. But I guess till this is the case, there will be new languages invented that may be better than Rust. On the other hand, most new companies don't hire old devs, so maybe IoT will give rise to new companies and young sysdevs all using Rust before the old generation is gone...

> I'd say, before Rust becomes really mainstream, we have to wait for the current generation of sysdevs to die.

Why?

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#34

Post by jcadam »

scythe wrote: post #23
sanjeetsuhag wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an aviation enthusiast and a CS undergrad. I've always wondered what's different about code written for airplanes. Anybody have any insight ? And is there a modern replacement for ADA?

Ada is still under active development and widely used in applications requiring extremely reliable software. http://www.ada2012.org/

I've used Ada on satellite programs, it's still very popular for that sort of thing. Ada has managed to carve out a small niche for itself in aerospace and I don't think it'll be replaced by rust anytime soon.

Which is fine, nothing wrong with Ada.

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#35

Post by stmfd »

eropple wrote: post #25
stmfd wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bad programmers are ones who state "segfault protection" as a feature of Rust because they read it on Rust's site. I genuinely don't think these features of Rust are really all that useful (they're being disingenuous; acting like C++ is some primitive language where you segfault every 5 minutes). Even Bjarne would probably agree. He talks about the same issue at his "The Essence of C++" talk. Someone asks…

I don't disagree with you in that well-written code should make invalid memory accesses rare. And I don't disagree that, if you write good C++ (and I've stumped around here for C++ because I really didn't learn it until C++11 and have never had an environment where I didn't have the tools to write good C++), they are. But I feel, and pretty strongly, that Rust makes it a lot harder to write bad code in general. Memor…

I agree, that was rather brash. They're not bad programmers. I tried to clarify that in my previous comment.

I think C++'s biggest failing is how large and convoluted it is but, in relation to the thread's question, how many beginner C++ programmers are gonna jump straight into systems programming? I sure hope the answer is 0.

I just see too many people quoting the list on Rust's homepage verbatim when I ask them about why a skilled C++ developer should pick up Rust.

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#36

Post by xiphias »

throwaway7645 wrote: post #3

It does keep rising in popularity, but is that coming from folks actually using system languages like C, C++, Ada, and Forth? I'm guessing only a portion. There's a difference between a web developer using Rust enthusiastically for hobby projects and a seasoned C coder switching to Rust for a professional job. In fact, a lot of the projects I've seen in Rust (ex: Dropbox) are commonly being done in Go as long as the…

Rust is the first language since C++ that can improve/not hinder runtime speed while making development safer, so I definately see its future.

The only problem is that the compiler is very slow now, so it doesn't scale to large code bases, which is a no-go in my company. Hopefully the Rust team understands that this is not only a would-be-nice to have feature (I see learning the borrow checker as a smaller problem)

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#37

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway7645 wrote: post #3

It does keep rising in popularity, but is that coming from folks actually using system languages like C, C++, Ada, and Forth? I'm guessing only a portion. There's a difference between a web developer using Rust enthusiastically for hobby projects and a seasoned C coder switching to Rust for a professional job. In fact, a lot of the projects I've seen in Rust (ex: Dropbox) are commonly being done in Go as long as the…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#38

Post by kibwen »

Animats wrote: post #27

I had great hopes for Rust as the future of systems programming, but they've decreased over time. Parts of the language are just too cute. The borrow checker was brilliant. Any future language that doesn't use garbage collection will have to have one. That was the big advance in Rust. But the object system (yeah, they're called structures and traits) is too weird. The enum approach to variant records is too weird. Th…

This critique makes no sense to me. The composition-based object system mirrors Go's. enums aren't original (ML, anyone? 1970s tech?) or weird (every new language from this decade has them, including Swift, and C++ will have them by C++20). Error handling is literally Go's `if err` pattern but first-class (Swift's error handling is quite similar as well). And your disdain for closures has long been noted and I reiterate that your concerns are overblown.

If you don't like Rust, that's A-OK. If you can't quite put your finger on why you don't like Rust, that's fine too. But please don't pass off your vague concerns as substantive criticism.

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#39

Post by koenigdavidmj »

Animats wrote: post #27

I had great hopes for Rust as the future of systems programming, but they've decreased over time. Parts of the language are just too cute. The borrow checker was brilliant. Any future language that doesn't use garbage collection will have to have one. That was the big advance in Rust. But the object system (yeah, they're called structures and traits) is too weird. The enum approach to variant records is too weird. Th…

You don't have to do any of that in your code. All the main compiled languages (or at least C++, Java, and C#) are all getting features roughly equivalent to what think is difficult in Rust: closures, functional pipelines, option types, pattern matching, and the like.

Sure, you've got to know about Option and Result to do anything with Rust, but you've got to know about exceptions and null pointers in the rest of those languages. But you can write coherent Rust using for loops everywhere instead of stupid closure tricks.

Re: Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

#40

Post by to3m »

stmfd wrote: post #35
eropple wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you in that well-written code should make invalid memory accesses rare. And I don't disagree that, if you write good C++ (and I've stumped around here for C++ because I really didn't learn it until C++11 and have never had an environment where I didn't have the tools to write good C++), they are. But I feel, and pretty strongly, that Rust makes it a lot harder to write bad code in general. Memor…

I agree, that was rather brash. They're not bad programmers. I tried to clarify that in my previous comment. I think C++'s biggest failing is how large and convoluted it is but, in relation to the thread's question, how many beginner C++ programmers are gonna jump straight into systems programming? I sure hope the answer is 0. I just see too many people quoting the list on Rust's homepage verbatim when I ask them abo…

But they're good features, mftb. I have to say that as an experienced (some might even say skilled) C++ developer I would go for pretty much all of them.
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