> So, using C++ was a no-brain decision
Yes
Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
141–150 of 307 posts
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#142> Rust is easy to learn. For seasoned C++ programmers, Rust is easy to learn. When they first start out, Rust learners usually spend most of their time making sense of ownership and lifetime. Even if they don't explicitly express these concepts in code, experienced C++ engineers always keep these two concepts in mind when programming in C++. Finally somebody understands this.
I was happy to see this as well. As a 'seasoned' C++ dev myself, when I learned Rust, I was pleasantly surprised to see those implicit concepts made explicit in code.
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not a stretch it is just plain wrong. C++ has good C interoperability (most C is even valid C++) and most compilers that support compiling one also support the other, but I can't take seriously anyone that refers to "C/C++" as one language.
Relationship is at best one-way only. C++ can mix and use C code. A C++ compiler will do fine with C. A C++ programmer will do more or less reasonable C code. C code will not accept C++. A C compiler will not support C++ (unless it's explicitly designed as a C++ compiler too). A C-only programmer will be as lost on a C++ codebase as on a Rust, Go or Java codebase.
This just makes sense since C++ is supposed to be an extension of C.
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#144> Rust is easy to learn. For seasoned C++ programmers, Rust is easy to learn. When they first start out, Rust learners usually spend most of their time making sense of ownership and lifetime. Even if they don't explicitly express these concepts in code, experienced C++ engineers always keep these two concepts in mind when programming in C++. Finally somebody understands this.
I disagree. Rust is not difficult because of lifetimes, it just gets in the way of freely prototyping what you want. This situation is slowly improving with the compiler getting better and better. Then there is some annoying macro usage. Some Rust code looks truly alien.
Rust isn't a prototyping language.
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#145Every time I read of memory leaks in C++ codebase, I get no idea why RAII didn't work in those cases. Even if the codebase was huge and complex. Circular references? Some special cases why one can't use RAII? Forget unique pointer or smart pointers. People had been coding in C++ far before that without fearing memory leaks by following RAII principals.
RAII isn't a perfect safeguard against memory leaks. Rust doesn't provide 100% protection against them, either, especially when `unsafe` gets involved. It's better than C++, though, in this regard. There is no fool-proof way to avoid them, other than by never dynamically allocating memory.
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Rust is not difficult because of lifetimes, it just gets in the way of freely prototyping what you want. I'm not a rust programmer, but I guess that's an issue if you come from a dynamic language, not from c++.
Yeah, sadly it is. With e.g. Elixir I can literally get into a REPL and prototype my solution in minutes, right there on the spot, and then just copy a few lines from it and have the solution be 90% done (minus tests, of course). With Go and Rust I have to make a dedicated function somewhere and then have it be called after starting the program. Ain't exactly rocket science but the difference in time to do it and the…
See this is what I’m scared about in my current job. We have some people who want to use dynamically typed languages and some who want to use static.
I don’t think being able to brain dump code is a good thing and it leads to an unmanageable mess when you have a large codebase. Types are essential as far as I’m concerned, but I constantly have to get into arguments with the dynamic type fans because their “flow” Is being restricted.
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, sadly it is. With e.g. Elixir I can literally get into a REPL and prototype my solution in minutes, right there on the spot, and then just copy a few lines from it and have the solution be 90% done (minus tests, of course). With Go and Rust I have to make a dedicated function somewhere and then have it be called after starting the program. Ain't exactly rocket science but the difference in time to do it and the…
See this is what I’m scared about in my current job. We have some people who want to use dynamically typed languages and some who want to use static. I don’t think being able to brain dump code is a good thing and it leads to an unmanageable mess when you have a large codebase. Types are essential as far as I’m concerned, but I constantly have to get into arguments with the dynamic type fans because their “flow” Is b…
Be a bit more charitable. :)
Brain-dumping is simply a way to iterate and figure out what works and what doesn't, quickly. After I do it I take the requisite time to emulate exhaustive pattern matching, and add tests that cover the functionality well.
My problem with Rust, and I love the language a lot, is exactly this: I want to quickly find what would work. After that I'm very happy to take the proper time to go things rigorously.
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#148> Rust is easy to learn. For seasoned C++ programmers, Rust is easy to learn. When they first start out, Rust learners usually spend most of their time making sense of ownership and lifetime. Even if they don't explicitly express these concepts in code, experienced C++ engineers always keep these two concepts in mind when programming in C++. Finally somebody understands this.
I disagree. Rust is not difficult because of lifetimes, it just gets in the way of freely prototyping what you want. This situation is slowly improving with the compiler getting better and better. Then there is some annoying macro usage. Some Rust code looks truly alien.
I agree with the macro part. I have seen people use macros instead of functions as a way to escape the type system. But it's not a problem that comes up with C++ programmers.
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Rust is not difficult because of lifetimes, it just gets in the way of freely prototyping what you want. This situation is slowly improving with the compiler getting better and better. Then there is some annoying macro usage. Some Rust code looks truly alien.
Is rust code heavily seasoned with unsafe keyword really that hard to prototype in? Is it meaningfully harder than c++ in this regard?
If I wanted to just blast out something quick and dirty, I don't think I'd reach for `unsafe`. It's syntactically inconvenient, with lots of `(*foo).bar` and `MaybeUninit`. And I don't think I could be happy with a prototype that's blatantly full of UB, so for me it would take more effort rather than less.
Now that I say that, I guess someone could write an "unsound helper functions" library that helps you write code full of UB conveniently. It could be an interesting thought experiment. But I don't think the community would be very happy about it...
Re: Building a Cloud Database from Scratch: Why We Moved from C++ to Rust (2022)
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to code primarily in C++ around 12 years ago, then moved over to Python. I've now started with Rust and I really love it. I find myself constantly fighting with the compiler, it telling me what it won't allow me to do. In C++, threading was my only way to execute parallel tasks, Python 3 showed me a about coroutines, which I've really started to love. So in Rust I'm experimenting a lot with Tokio right now, an…
Cloudflare Workers (serverless) + WebSockets is the lingua franca of the internet now. Using languages with built-in concurrent stream processing features is I feel key to moving at internet speeds ;)
Those are both mostly niche technologies, they're really nowhere near "the lingua franca of the Internet". In fact, "serverless" may well be past its peak, with many having tried it in AWS or Azure a few years ago, and then moving on to Kubernetes to avoid the extreme vendor lock-in. And while there are "serverless" frameworks for K8S, they are not as popular as more traditional deployments.