Live data from Hacker News

Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

rustfoundation.org

441–450 of 523 posts

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#441
post #162

This makes strategic sense in multiple ways: 1. Rust's memory safety design will help Microsoft improve a gigantic portfolios of products that have been known to have lots of CVEs and 70% of them are memory safety issues, according to Azure CTO Mark Russinovich's talk at RustCon last year.[1] 2. Windows 11's forceful push to retire millions of legacy PC hardware by putting Windows 10 EOL last October was absurd for m…

> This requires the Windows 11 operating system to be more conservative about RAM usage, Rust can be a part of that. Most of Windows is written in C and C++. How would Rust help to reduce RAM usage?

Well that leaves up to almost 50% potentially not written in either language.

And little code can already have a big impact, e.g. react native in start menu coupled with edge running in the background

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#442
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it takes time. Even with coding agents, to add the capability. Then, there is the question on whether Rust developers who like to engage with Microsoft tools, would really consider Visual Studio as their IDE, instead of something like VS Code, VS Code Agent Mode, GitHub Copilot App, or GitHub Copilot CLI with simpler editors. I'd be curious to know whether Rust developers believe Visual Studio is the right pl…

Visual Studio does have a really nice C++ debugger - one would imagine the C++ debugging capabilities should translate to Rust.

Hot code reloading, and incremental linking would be great, given the build times.

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe a nice sabbatical aboard a sailboat expedition.

Or maybe not, because that's where confusing 180 and 360 degrees or headwind and tailwing will REALLY bite you.

Sure, but if you come back, you'll have really learned that stuff!

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#445

I've been writing Rust professionally for the last 5 years (where my first decade of professional experience started in frontend, then moved down the stack TypeScript/Node, Go, C# and so on). From the perspective of high level application development, I can't see a technical use case for a language other than Rust these days. If wasm worked (and MacOS/Windows/Android/iOS native UI support existed), I would write my b…

> From the perspective of high level application development, I can't see a technical use case for a language other than Rust these days. What is wrong with C# and WinForms/WPF? It is an excellent platform to write enterprise desktop apps. Also, developer efficiency is way higher in C# compared to Rust. The language is much simpler, and the VM supports garbage collection. Again: For enterprise apps this is a big win.

Win forms/WPF is essentially legacy, and using C# consumes much more resources than Rust (even for UI, see Windows Reactor C# vs Rust).

Additionally, I don't think C# is that simple anymore. By now it has so many features added and the list is still increasing this day. Rust is more difficult to get productive, but the actual language complexity isnt that big.

LLMS makes onboarding to Rust much easier though if you even still write code yourself. I don't think the productivity difference is that large.

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why isn't the game industry moving to it then? Bc it just cannot compete at volubility with C++, among other things. I have no opinion regarding rust suitability as a game language, but your answer doesn't sound right. The actual reason is much simpler. The industry is built on a handful of game engines. Those engines are extended or scripted in C++ or C#. Thus the vast, vast majority of the work force will only ha…

> The actual reason is much simpler. The industry is built on a handful of game engines This is a strong reason, but then why in other areas they consider it over C++ for greenfield but it hardly happens in games?

Because retooling and relearning development pipelines (on any level/most teams) for games is a horrifically expensive and time-consuming affair... which are resources not spent on developing any one of the potentially dozen or so games. It's just priorities, alas.

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#447
post #432

This is from rustconf. A lot of the focus at Rustconf this year has been C++ interop, Python Interop, Javascript interop -- it's no longer about "rewrite it in rust", it's about being part of the ecosystem.

Rewrite it in Rust has always been more a fantasy of the C++ community than a goal of the Rust ecosystem.

It's definitely been a meme in the rust ecosystem

(but yes, the language team and ecosystem were always making a point of incremental addition rather than full rewrite)

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#448

I've been writing Rust professionally for the last 5 years (where my first decade of professional experience started in frontend, then moved down the stack TypeScript/Node, Go, C# and so on). From the perspective of high level application development, I can't see a technical use case for a language other than Rust these days. If wasm worked (and MacOS/Windows/Android/iOS native UI support existed), I would write my b…

If wasm worked is a pretty big caveat still. DOM APIs are still significantly slower in rust using wasm than pure js last I checked.

Still, it's fast enough that Rust frameworks can compete with the fastest JS frameworks on UI benchmarks [1]

Imo bundle size is a bigger issue.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=4KtotxNAwME

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an embedded dev, it still feels a decade away, at least. Rust is perfectly usable as a lang to make a little module that links into your main project as a .a file. But, as the language for your whole embedded codebase? Forget it. I have a litany of complaints including Cargo fuckery, ecosystem neglect, lack of first-party support, excessive code size, bad documentation, and bad IR that wastes stack by creating cop…

> But I work in a space where C and C++ have been the only option for the last 30 years with absolutely no production-ready alternative. What "space"? My guess: HFT or HPC.

Their message begins with "As an embedded dev"

Re: Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> C++ is still indicated for systems that are optimizing for performance The only evidence I've seen for this is that people with a vested interest in my believing this keep saying it is true. That's the exact same evidence I have for Trump having triumphed in Iran. Do better if you want me to believe you. > since it intrinsically requires a lot of "unsafe" constructs. This is an excellent reason to choose Rust. The…

I heard that unsafe rust is then unsafer than c++. I haven't learned rust yet, and I get that it's a tradeoff because the rest of the system can still be relied on. But how true is that first statement?

It's not helpful to think of it as "unsafer" but I think the way I'd explain this goes as follows:

Rust has some stricter and more complicated rules even than a language like C++. Just as in C++ you absolutely must obey these rules at all times. However, in Safe Rust the tooling will ensure that following those rules is never your problem. You don't even need to know what the rules are, just like you don't need to know why a plane works let alone how to fly it to get on a jetliner and fly across the country for $$$.

In unsafe Rust, it is your job as programmer to understand and obey these rules because the "unsafe super powers" you can use only in these blocks cannot be checked by the tooling, it can help sometimes but you can't rely on it. Writing ten lines of correct unsafe Rust is thus probably significantly harder than writing ten lines of C++. But the Rust programmer knows when they need to be at their sharpest, they need proper review by somebody paying attention, they need to slow down and think it through, versus the rest of the safe Rust where it's less scary, in C++ every line you write might be a fatal problem.

Basically, walking a tight rope is harder than everyday walking, but you know when you're on a tight rope, you've trained for it, everybody is focused on your safety - so actually maybe that's not a problem, lot of people get injured just walking about every day.

Post reply on HN