Considering Rust [video]

I've been getting into Rust lately and really enjoying it so far. Coming from JavaScript, It can feel a bit verbose at times and I'm still trying to get an intuitive grasp of ownership but it feels like a really small cost compared to say C/C++. A nice bonus is that it has very good support for WebAssembly/Node.js which makes it easy to start using Rust for some JavaScript modules without having to re-write the whole codebase. And finally, the community is still very noob-friendly.

> It can feel a bit verbose at times

Certainly can, especially compared to JavaScript. The way I've come to view this (and across more languages than just Rust) is that it's a trade-off between providing more information to the compiler which it can use to catch errors, and verbosity. You can't provide the information without some input, though things like type inference can help cut down on this. IMO, it's worth it: my Rust code, once it compiles, I feel has less bugs than my equivalent Python; I'd rather fight with the compiler than with runtime exceptions.

As I've learned Rust, I also find that sometimes you can elide some parts of things. E.g., in collect() calls, you can say Vec, eliding the item in the Vec, because the iterator you're collecting it from already knows it, and it can be inferred from that.

Of course, sometimes, I think it's nice to provide the type anyways, as I find the compiler is better at inferring than I am. I've definitely spent a fair amount of time in Python looking at a variable and wondering what type IS this?

I guess people need to kill their time somehow while their rust code finish to compile.

I don't think Rust has reached wide acceptance yet.

Sure there are companies that use it, but I bet you'd have a hard time convincing your manager that Rust is widely accepted in industry.

Anyway, I certainly appreciate all of the posts.

Forget about Rust, and just think of it as a talk about why you should be considering language X. Do you still feel exhausted?

I think it would be interesting to see a breakdown of the blog posts and talks posted to HN by language.