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What is Rust and why is it so popular?

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Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#31

Post by School-Cotton »

SeekingMeaning wrote: post #3

Rust newbie here. How do you fix the compile error for the example given? I imagine it has something to do with transferring ownership, but I’m not too sure.

Are you familiar with C++? That example is roughly equivalent to:

  #include 
  #include 
  #include 
  
  int main()
  {
      std::string name { "Vivian" };
      auto nickname = std::string_view { name }.substr(0, 3);
      name.clear();
      std::cout
which will happily compile, but whose behavior is undefined.

Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#32

Post by Sevii »

Waterluvian wrote: post #7
ChrisSD wrote: post #4

I think one of the biggest benefits of Rust is it bakes in static analysis of code as a first class feature. Which means the language is amenable to analysis and you don't have to use third party tools to benefit from it. I also like some of the abstractions. They're clever in their simplicity. For example, an iterator over an array or vector is simply doing a for loop using pointers.

I'd like to understand what you mean by baked in. Not only does vscode need a plugin, it needs a language server running to do the static analysis. Are there analysis capabilities without the language server?

vscode requires languages to implement a language server. It doesn't have anything to do with rust.

Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#33

Post by steveklabnik »

alerighi wrote: post #18

Rust is a great language if you use for what was intended, system programming and as safe substitute of C and C++. But it's not the answer of everything, to me it's nowadays abused in a lot of projects, there are instances of project where using Rust not only doesn't make a lot of sense but also can be slower than another languages, there are cases where Go is better, other where Node.js is better, other where Python…

The key is in another comment on this thread:

> Lots of these things that look like syntax problems are in fact design problems surfaced by the compiler.

A lot of people are finding value in the rules Rust provides. This is irrespective of domain. The strict compiler helps you refactor code in ways that less strict languages don't. You still can do it, of course, you just have a lot less help.

The trick is, is the initial hit in productivity worth it, until you get up to speed?

That said, of course everything doesn't need to be in Rust. But there's a reason it's finding broader appeal than purely systems stuff.

Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#34

Post by alxlaz »

Over the last couple of months I've been slowly, but steadily playing with Rust. I work on embedded systems and while it's gaining traction only slowly, it feels to me reasonably likely that we'll be seeing non-trivial applications in the next 8-10 years. I doubt that we'll see it used for low-power/resource-constrained firmware, but lots and lots of embedded systems are now bulky Linux boxes with years of uptime, and I can see Rust making inroads there. It's not a bad idea to be ready for this, just in case it turns out to be a revolution.

Honestly, I like it, and for all the non-hyped reasons.

Like ownership. Lots of us in the embedded space aren't so impressed by the extra memory safety because, if you allocate all your memory statically, there are fewer ways to screw things up with references, and it's a lot easier to do bounds checking, so fewer bugs slip in. Not that "even fewer" isn't good, it's just that the impact is less dramatic than in application code.

But: the borrow checker still pesters me about something I've written every once in a while. And every once in a while, what it pesters me about is a data race that would have definitely bit me in the back sooner or later. It has no security implications, I guess, and it wouldn't crash my program, but it's still wrong. Yay!

Or like traits, which are just so refreshingly sane.

Lots of people are hung up on security and segfaults, and spend far less time talking about a far less categorical property: the conventions that Rust enforces make it easier to write correct code. Sometimes it's not straightforward code, mind you, but "works right" trumps "fits in a single line" in my book...

In many ways, Rust is what C++ could have been if it had not been designed by saying yes to everything. I guess it's not there yet, but there's a chance it might be.

On a more, uh, philosophical note, I think it's pretty cool that our industry has been granted a second chance in this regard. We've already been given Ada, and we missed the chance to adopt it on a wide enough scale to make a difference. Maybe we won't miss this chance.

Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#35

Post by sdegutis »

steveklabnik wrote: post #33
alerighi wrote: post #18

Rust is a great language if you use for what was intended, system programming and as safe substitute of C and C++. But it's not the answer of everything, to me it's nowadays abused in a lot of projects, there are instances of project where using Rust not only doesn't make a lot of sense but also can be slower than another languages, there are cases where Go is better, other where Node.js is better, other where Python…

The key is in another comment on this thread: > Lots of these things that look like syntax problems are in fact design problems surfaced by the compiler. A lot of people are finding value in the rules Rust provides. This is irrespective of domain. The strict compiler helps you refactor code in ways that less strict languages don't. You still can do it, of course, you just have a lot less help. The trick is, is the in…

I think this is misplaced causation. Don’t discount the fact that a significant number of programmers just like novelty and like Rust because it’s new in the same way Haskell is new to a Java dev.

That said, Rust’s domain does seem wider than just systems programming. It has the right abstractions to be suitable for (edit: some) higher level things like web apps.

Personally Rust is turning into what I was assuming and hoping Go was going to turn into back in 2010: a static language that does most of what we all used dynamic languages for, without too much extra difficulty. (That is, after you get used to the borrow checker’s rules.)

Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#36

Post by dorfsmay »

alxlaz wrote: post #34

Over the last couple of months I've been slowly, but steadily playing with Rust. I work on embedded systems and while it's gaining traction only slowly, it feels to me reasonably likely that we'll be seeing non-trivial applications in the next 8-10 years. I doubt that we'll see it used for low-power/resource-constrained firmware, but lots and lots of embedded systems are now bulky Linux boxes with years of uptime, an…

> I doubt that we'll see it used for low-power/resource-constrained firmware

I'm curious what your reasoning is for saying this?

Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#38

Post by pron »

alxlaz wrote: post #34

Over the last couple of months I've been slowly, but steadily playing with Rust. I work on embedded systems and while it's gaining traction only slowly, it feels to me reasonably likely that we'll be seeing non-trivial applications in the next 8-10 years. I doubt that we'll see it used for low-power/resource-constrained firmware, but lots and lots of embedded systems are now bulky Linux boxes with years of uptime, an…

I think that Rust's approach to safety -- soundly eliminate UB in safe code -- comes at the high cost of complexity. This affects how easy it is to write custom compilers (very important in the embedded space), but it is also not necessarily the best way to reduce bugs. For some, this cost is acceptable, and I'm sure some people may even welcome the high-level-looking code [1] that Rust and C++ support, but I think there are better ways, ones that are more appealing in low-level ("systems") programming in general and the embedded space in particular: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21970987, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22021237

Rust is without a doubt a (much) "better C++" but I'm not sure a better C++ is necessarily what systems programming needs most.

[1]: Not that writing that code is as easy as in a high-level language, nor does it offer the same level of abstraction as high-level languages, where changing the details of the implementation does not affect the API and its clients, but it looks high level, or "expressive", on the page.

Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#39

Post by pron »

ChrisSD wrote: post #4

I think one of the biggest benefits of Rust is it bakes in static analysis of code as a first class feature. Which means the language is amenable to analysis and you don't have to use third party tools to benefit from it. I also like some of the abstractions. They're clever in their simplicity. For example, an iterator over an array or vector is simply doing a for loop using pointers.

Yes and no. It provides some kinds of (important!) static analysis out of the box, but at the cost of complexity, which directly adversely affects some other kinds of (also important) static analysis. For example, there are sound static analysis tools that guarantee no undefined behavior of C code, but AFAIK, such tools can at best only work on a subset of C++, because of its complexity.

Rust goes all out on eliminating undefined behavior, and may well be the best way of doing that in low-level programming, but eliminating UB is just a means to an end, UB is not the only source of dangerous bugs, and if the cost of eliminating it is high it may not be the best way overall of reducing bugs in low-level languages.

Re: What is Rust and why is it so popular?

#40

Post by sdegutis »

setr wrote: post #30
mjw1007 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "deepening crisis" is this? Is it just the usual internet drama with a few people being unpleasant to each other and then storming off in a huff, or something more serious?

Some well-liked SF mod got randomly booted due to a CoC powerplay, and then everything exploded. Rules weren't followed correctly, mods getting kicked out or quiting in revolt, all sorts of corporate powerplays and misplays Basically the whole stack overflow administration is fucked, but also no one really cares because that administration is mostly invisible to the majority of SF users (developers coming from Google…

I’m on the fence to whether to care about any of this. On one hand I’ve no time for nonsense anymore. On the other hand, it sounds like it means SO will degrade (even more) because of it.
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