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Was Rust Worth It?

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Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#481

Post by akoboldfrying »

jmyeet wrote: post #140
lolinder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe it was a reaction against the Java-style reverse DNS notation I suspect it was less a reaction against anything and more just following the norms established by most other package managers. NPM, PyPI, RubyGems, Elixir's Hex, Haskell's Cabal... I'm having a hard time thinking of a non-Java package manager that was around at the time Rust came out that didn't have a single, global namespace. Some have tried to…

I'm honestly astounded at how badly many languages have implemented dependency management, particularly when Java basically got this right almost 20 years ago (Maven) and others have made the mistakes that Java fixed. With Maven you get: 1. Flexible version (of requirements) specification; 2. Yes, source code had domain names in packages but that came from Java and you can technically separate that in the dependency…

The dependency management side of Maven is great. OTOH, I was astounded to learn today that Maven recompiles everything if you touch any source file: https://stackoverflow.com/a/49700942

This was solved for C programs since whenever makedepend came out! (I'm guessing the 80s.)

(Bonus grief: Maven's useIncrementalCompilation boolean setting does the opposite of what it says in the tin.)

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#482

Post by camkego »

adastra22 wrote: post #40
tantalor wrote: post #19

> I started writing tests in Rust as I would in any other language but found that I was writing tests couldn’t fail. This is a common refrain in C++ testing: if it compiles then it's probably correct. > Rust has accounted for so many errors that many common test cases become irrelevant In practice, if you think this way I think it's a sign that you aren't testing the right things in those other languages. You should…

> This is a common refrain in C++ testing: if it compiles then it's probably correct. I’ve heard this in Haskell and in Rust. I’ve never heard it applied to C++…

That used to be a joke at many places I worked at with large C/Cpp code bases. Always said tongue in cheek.

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#483

Post by dgb23 »

Sharlin wrote: post #93
tantalor wrote: post #19

> I started writing tests in Rust as I would in any other language but found that I was writing tests couldn’t fail. This is a common refrain in C++ testing: if it compiles then it's probably correct. > Rust has accounted for so many errors that many common test cases become irrelevant In practice, if you think this way I think it's a sign that you aren't testing the right things in those other languages. You should…

A null pointer exception is a bug that breaks business logic. There's no "business logic instead of language stuff" because the language stuff is the foundation that business logic rests on. If you don't test against failure modes, what's even the point in testing?

If an exception breaks business logic, then you can test the code by testing business logic.

How do null pointer exceptions arise?

Inconsistent data: you have code paths that implicitly assume invariants. Trivial cases like “this field is not provided” and more complex ones like “these fields have a specific relationship”.

You can often move those assumptions into the data structure in any language.

Then your tests become a matter of generating and transforming data from a holistic perspective instead of micromanaging individual code paths.

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#484

Post by hardware2win »

speed_spread wrote: post #228
baby wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke?

Having tried Java and other languages, no, it's not a joke. Other than XML Maven got a lot of things right.

What the hell is that XML hate

Whats the diff between changing lib version in xml and json?

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#485

Post by api »

kuon wrote: post #231

I wrote a lot of rust, but after some years it still feels unproductive. I do a lot of zig now and I am like 10 times more productive with it. I can just concentrate on what I want to code and I never have to wonder what tool or what library to use. I know rust gives memory safety and how important that is, but the ergonomic is really bad. Every time I write some rust I feel limited. I always have to search libraries…

How much of your negative Rust experience is due to async?

Having used Rust for a long time it’s definitely the biggest source of confusion and headaches.

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#486

Post by actionfromafar »

raincole wrote: post #443
pizza234 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At this point, I'm about as fast in Rust as I am in Python. This is factually impossible. For anything larger than (very) small programs, Rust requires an upfront design stage, due to ownership, that it's not required when developing in GC'ed languages. This is not even considering more local complexities, like data structures with cyclical references.

Of course it's possible. You just need to write Python very slowly :)

Everyone has their breaking point. I start to write Python very slowly around after 10k lines or so. Can't remember where I put stuff...

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#487

Post by api »

ernst_klim wrote: post #449
kuon wrote: post #231

I wrote a lot of rust, but after some years it still feels unproductive. I do a lot of zig now and I am like 10 times more productive with it. I can just concentrate on what I want to code and I never have to wonder what tool or what library to use. I know rust gives memory safety and how important that is, but the ergonomic is really bad. Every time I write some rust I feel limited. I always have to search libraries…

I agree. I feel far more productive in C and C++ than in Rust at that point. Rust feels like totally missing the sweet spot for me. It's way too pedantic about low level stuff for writing higher level applications, but way too complicated for embedded or writing an OS. In the former case I would rather take a C++, Java, Haskell, OCaml or even Go, and maybe sprinkle some C, and in the latter case C in macroassembly mo…

The problem with C and to C++ is that it’s 2023 and the CVE list is still loaded with basic memory errors. These come from everywhere too: small companies and open source all the way up to Apple, Microsoft, and Google.

We as a profession have proven that we can’t write unsafe code at scale and avoid these problems. You might be able to in hand whittled code you write but what happens when other people work on it, it gets refactored, someone pulls in a merge without looking too closely, etc., or even maybe you come back two years later to fix something and have forgotten the details.

Having the compiler detect almost all memory errors is necessary. Either that or the language has to avoid this entirely. Rust is the former class unless you use unsafe, and the fact that it’s called “unsafe” makes it trivial to search for. You can automatically flag commits with unsafe in them for extra review or even prohibit it.

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#488

Post by api »

pizza234 wrote: post #436
goku12 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the ergonomic is really bad. Every time I write some rust I feel limited. > But I do not think it is a good general purpose language. Remember that this is not a sentiment that's shared by everyone. I use Rust for tasks that need anything more complicated than a shell script. Even my window manager is controlled from a Rust program. I say this as someone who has been programming in Python for nearly two decades…

> At this point, I'm about as fast in Rust as I am in Python. This is factually impossible. For anything larger than (very) small programs, Rust requires an upfront design stage, due to ownership, that it's not required when developing in GC'ed languages. This is not even considering more local complexities, like data structures with cyclical references.

I have to second the OP: ownership isn’t that hard. I just get used to structuring a program in certain ways. Having written a lot of C++ helps because the things Rust won’t let you do are often unsafe or a source of leaks and bugs in C++.

Having an editor with rust-analyzer running is massively helpful too since ownership issues get highlighted very quickly. I can’t imagine dealing with any language larger than C without a smart editor. It can be done but why?

I still find async annoying though.

My biggest source of friction with Rust (other than async) is figuring out how to write code that is both very high performance and modular. I end up using a lot of generics and it gets verbose.

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#489

Post by caskstrength »

goku12 wrote: post #416
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, I am faster in Rust than any other language. Something about my prior experiences just made it click just the right way. I don't want to program in anything else anymore. I don't want to deal with obscure C++ error messages, C footguns and lack of ergonomics, I don't want to deal with abstraction hell of Java, or the poor person's typing that python has. I have been programming in Python for the past 6…

> Surprisingly, I am faster in Rust than any other language. Not really surprising, given that you have C and C++ background. That's what I was trying to highlight. Rust isn't a confusing or unproductive language as many project it to be - if you have the conceptual understanding of what happens on the hardware. Especially about stack frames and RAII. If you know those, the borrow checker complaints will immediately…

> Rust isn't a confusing or unproductive language as many project it to be - if you have the conceptual understanding of what happens on the hardware. Especially about stack frames and RAII. If you know those, the borrow checker complaints will immediately make sense and you will know how to resolve them.

I have reasonable understanding of "what happens on the hardware" (been writing kernel code for years), know modern C++ (with RAII and stuff) and Rust is confusing and unproductive language for me.

Re: Was Rust Worth It?

#490

Post by mejutoco »

pizza234 wrote: post #436
goku12 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the ergonomic is really bad. Every time I write some rust I feel limited. > But I do not think it is a good general purpose language. Remember that this is not a sentiment that's shared by everyone. I use Rust for tasks that need anything more complicated than a shell script. Even my window manager is controlled from a Rust program. I say this as someone who has been programming in Python for nearly two decades…

> At this point, I'm about as fast in Rust as I am in Python. This is factually impossible. For anything larger than (very) small programs, Rust requires an upfront design stage, due to ownership, that it's not required when developing in GC'ed languages. This is not even considering more local complexities, like data structures with cyclical references.

Couldn't one use Arc and similar boxed types to avoid thinking about memory until later?
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