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APT Rust requirement raises questions

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Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#131

Post by mbel »

stingraycharles wrote: post #52
dv35z wrote: post #31

Every time I consider learning Rust, I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. It seems to me that we ought to have a system-level language which builds upon the learnings of the past 20+ years. Can someone help me understand this? Why are we pushing forward with a language that has a Perl-esque unreadability...? Comparison: I often program in Python (and teach it) - and while it has its own syntax warts & fr…

Seems like a fairly decent syntax. It’s less simple than many systems languages because it has a very strong type system. That’s a choice of preference in how you want to solve a problem. I don’t think the memory safety guarantees of Rust could be expressed in the syntax of a language like C or Go.

> It’s less simple than many systems languages because it has a very strong type system.

I don’t think that’s the case, somehow most ML derived languages ended up with stronger type system and cleaner syntax.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#132

Post by dimgl »

dv35z wrote: post #31

Every time I consider learning Rust, I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. It seems to me that we ought to have a system-level language which builds upon the learnings of the past 20+ years. Can someone help me understand this? Why are we pushing forward with a language that has a Perl-esque unreadability...? Comparison: I often program in Python (and teach it) - and while it has its own syntax warts & fr…

> Every time I consider learning Rust, I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. It seems to me that we ought to have a system-level language which builds upon the learnings of the past 20+ years.

I said this years ago and I was basically told "skill issue". It's unreadable. I shudder to think what it's like to maintain a Rust system at scale.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#133

Post by anarki8 »

epolanski wrote: post #11
petcat wrote: post #3

Interesting how instead of embracing Rust as a required toolchain for APT, the conversation quickly devolved into "why don't we just build a tool that can translate memory-safe Rust code into memory-unsafe C code? Then we don't have to do anything." This feels like swimming upstream just for spite.

The problem is that rust is being shoved in pointless places with a rewrite-everything-in-rust mentality. There's lunatics that want to replace basic Unix tools like sudo, etc, that are battle tested since ages which has been a mess of bugs till now. Instead Rust should find it's niches beyond rewriting what works, but tackling what doesn't.

> The problem is that rust is being shoved in pointless places with a rewrite-everything-in-rust mentality.

> There's lunatics ...

I think the problem is people calling developers "lunatics" and telling them which languages they must use and which software they must not rewrite.

Battle tested is not bulletproof: https://cybersecuritynews.com/sudo-linux-vulnerability/

Applying strict compile time rules makes software better. And with time it will also become battle tested.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#134

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

woodruffw wrote: post #30
bakugo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they wouldn't experience so much pushback if they were more humble, had more respect for established software and practices, and were more open to discussion. You can't go around screaming "your code SUCKS and you need to rewrite it my way NOW" at everyone all the time and expect people to not react negatively.

To be clear, the "you" and "my" in your sentence refer to the same person. Julian appears to be the APT maintainer, so there's no compulsion except what he applies to himself. (Maybe you mean this in some general sense, but the actual situation at hand doesn't remotely resemble a hostile unaffiliated demand against a project.)

> Julian appears to be the APT maintainer, so there's no compulsion except what he applies to himself.

To who is this addressed?

> If you maintain a port without a working Rust toolchain, please ensure it has one within the next 6 months, or sunset the port.

Because that sure reads as a compulsion to me.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#135

Post by yoyohello13 »

dimgl wrote: post #132
dv35z wrote: post #31

Every time I consider learning Rust, I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. It seems to me that we ought to have a system-level language which builds upon the learnings of the past 20+ years. Can someone help me understand this? Why are we pushing forward with a language that has a Perl-esque unreadability...? Comparison: I often program in Python (and teach it) - and while it has its own syntax warts & fr…

> Every time I consider learning Rust, I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. It seems to me that we ought to have a system-level language which builds upon the learnings of the past 20+ years. I said this years ago and I was basically told "skill issue". It's unreadable. I shudder to think what it's like to maintain a Rust system at scale.

You get used to it. Like any language.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#136

Post by raincole »

enriquto wrote: post #96
dv35z wrote: post #31

Every time I consider learning Rust, I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. It seems to me that we ought to have a system-level language which builds upon the learnings of the past 20+ years. Can someone help me understand this? Why are we pushing forward with a language that has a Perl-esque unreadability...? Comparison: I often program in Python (and teach it) - and while it has its own syntax warts & fr…

> I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. Well if you come from C++ it's a breath of fresh air! Rust is like a "cleaned-up" C++, that does not carry the historical baggage forced by backwards compatibility. It is well-thought out from the start. The syntax may appear a bit too synthetic; but that's just the first day of use. If you use it for a few days, you'll soon find that it's a great, beautiful languag…

> Cargo is a terrifying nightmare

Really? Why? I'm not a Rust guru, but Cargo is the only part of Rust that gave me a great first impression.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#137

Post by dev_l1x_be »

dv35z wrote: post #31

Every time I consider learning Rust, I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. It seems to me that we ought to have a system-level language which builds upon the learnings of the past 20+ years. Can someone help me understand this? Why are we pushing forward with a language that has a Perl-esque unreadability...? Comparison: I often program in Python (and teach it) - and while it has its own syntax warts & fr…

I would argue that anything that is not Lisp has a complicated syntax.

The question is: is it worth it?

With Rust for the answer is yes. The reliability, speed, data-race free nature of the code I get from Rust absolutely justifies the syntax quirks (for me!).

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#138

Post by pxc »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #57
dv35z wrote: post #31

Every time I consider learning Rust, I am thrown back by how... "janky" the syntax is. It seems to me that we ought to have a system-level language which builds upon the learnings of the past 20+ years. Can someone help me understand this? Why are we pushing forward with a language that has a Perl-esque unreadability...? Comparison: I often program in Python (and teach it) - and while it has its own syntax warts & fr…

I'm writing this as a heavy python user in my day job. Python is terrible for writing complex systems in. Both the language and the libraries are full of footguns for the novice and expert alike. It has 20 years of baggage, the packaging and environment handling is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster, although uv seems to be a minor light at the end of the tunnel. It is not a simple language at this point. It ha…

What's wrong with R? I used it and liked it in undergrad. I certainly didn't use it as seriously as the users who made Python popular, but to this day I remember R fondly and would never choose Python for a personal project.

My R use was self-taught, as well. I refused to use proprietary software for school all through high school and university, so I used R where we were expected to use Excel or MatLab (though I usually used GNU Octave for the latter), including for at least one or two math classes. I don't remember anything being tricky or difficult to work with.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#139

Post by steveklabnik »

mbel wrote: post #131
stingraycharles wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a fairly decent syntax. It’s less simple than many systems languages because it has a very strong type system. That’s a choice of preference in how you want to solve a problem. I don’t think the memory safety guarantees of Rust could be expressed in the syntax of a language like C or Go.

> It’s less simple than many systems languages because it has a very strong type system. I don’t think that’s the case, somehow most ML derived languages ended up with stronger type system and cleaner syntax.

Rust's most complained about syntax, the lifetime syntax, was borrowed from an ML: OCaml.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#140

Post by yoyohello13 »

mbel wrote: post #131
stingraycharles wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a fairly decent syntax. It’s less simple than many systems languages because it has a very strong type system. That’s a choice of preference in how you want to solve a problem. I don’t think the memory safety guarantees of Rust could be expressed in the syntax of a language like C or Go.

> It’s less simple than many systems languages because it has a very strong type system. I don’t think that’s the case, somehow most ML derived languages ended up with stronger type system and cleaner syntax.

One of the design goals of rust is explicitness. I think if Rust had type elision, like many other functional languages, it would go a long way to cleaning up the syntax.
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