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Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

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Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#151

Post by UK-Al05 »

wredue wrote: post #114
namaria wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People _mentioning_ Rust means they will bring a random language into your stack if they are hired? This red flag cultural trend is blinding people to nuanced thought.

I feel like you’re giving rust a pass here. It would be a red flag if you were interviewing for react and decided to bring up vue or svelte or angular or whatever else as well. It’s not like it’s only this C++/Rust type deal that is being picked on. Although I would suggest that rust fans tend to be particularly ardent and loud at the current moment, so interviewers may be far more turned off of you as a person just…

You should value wide knowledge. Not be scared of it.

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#152

Post by sn9 »

jasonjmcghee wrote: post #103

Are there any rust books that have the focus of “ok you are productive in rust, this is what you should know / do to write proper rust”? Edit: ok found https://github.com/sger/RustBooks Any specific recommendations?

It sounds like you want Rust for Rustaceans: https://nostarch.com/rust-rustaceans

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#153

Post by PartiallyTyped »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #56
diego_moita wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I am still looking for a Rust position, although I have more than 3 years of experience with it. And yes, it is very hard. It seems Rust is in a chicken/egg position: employers avoid it because "there are few developers", developers avoid it because "there are few jobs". Until recently the majority of Rust jobs were blockchain stuff. Now I see a rise in network infrastructure and security.

Seems like RUST needs work to become easier to learn. Hard for a business to take a risk on using it (outside of a use case absolutely needing a memory safe language) if the talent pool is shallow.

Rust is very easy to learn. Just read what the compiler says. The compiler is there to help you, it has a holistic view of what's going on, and it knows what it needs for your code to be fixed.

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#154

Post by PartiallyTyped »

risyachka wrote: post #63
jimbob45 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not a developer? Being proficient in one means that it will take very little time to transfer to the other. C++ and Rust have a great deal of overlap in that way.

It only works one way though (at least in this case). If you know C++ you can quickly become proficient in Rust. But not the other way around.

If you know rust, you can carry the same ideas to C++. My C and C++ skills greatly improved as I got better with rust. The compiler forces you to learn proper memory management and that carries over.

Smart pointers? Just Box, Rc, Arc and Refcel.

Move semantics? It's just another name for ownership.

Sure, the OOP stuff are different, but okay, that in and of itself shouldn't hinder you.

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#155

Post by PartiallyTyped »

jonnytran wrote: post #92
xedrac wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is to introduce Rust wherever you're at, assuming it's a good fit for the task. This may be harder to do if you don't have enough influence.

Yes, I did this at my startup. Fast forward a few years, and now the company has more Rust code than Python, and the majority of the company's IP is in Rust. I suggest beginning with small, one-off things that don't have much impact. People, even developers, tend to shy away from things that aren't familiar. By introducing Rust in a small, low-risk way, it helps people get familiar with it. They get to build familiar…

I am in the process of oxidizing some stuff at work with Rust. I too am starting from small pieces, things that I can incorporate and call off python directly. Also relying a bit on codegen to blend the two languages and slowly remove all python code.

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#156

Post by summerlight »

mmastrac wrote: post #20

I love writing Rust, but I was really surprised by how difficult it was to find a job _actually_ writing Rust. I'm happy to see the increased activity in the space, but searching for a job in Rust is probably still 10x harder than C or C++. It worked out in the end, and I'm happy to be getting paid to be writing Rust every day, but I hope that the market for Rust jobs continues to grow -- ideally even faster than it…

One thing is that a large fraction of C/C++ devs are hired by big companies. And those tend to have a large amount of legacy code and in-house tooling. Adding one more language to such big ecosystem can be a significant investment than kicking off a new project from scratch, so they need a good transition story to convince stakeholders and get actual funding(=more headcount/jobs).

I think Rust has reached to the level where many of us agree on that it's probably a good idea to move on, but probably not many of us have a good idea on how to do that. Hopefully some teams are eager to do that, so we will see some success story soon then more and more teams will explore such possibility.

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#157

Post by struant »

Merad wrote: post #12
chiph wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is the .NET runtime + libraries, not applications written in C#.

No, they're looking at migrating some core Office 365 services to Rust. This is the job posting: https://jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/job/1633482/Pri... At the scale of O365 it totally makes sense to look at a high performance non-GC language for your core systems that see the most traffic (I say this as a .Net dev).

Sounds like a skill issue to me. Their code sucks and they want to blame the language.

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#158

Post by pdimitar »

pornel wrote: post #127
unclad5968 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care that it's hard to learn. What turns me off rust is that if I ever make a change that requires a lifetime annotation, I now have to go back through all my code potentially adding lifetime annotations to everything it touches. I was making a little toy compiler in rust and basically gave up when I wanted to make a change that would have amount to string -> string_view in c++ because in rust I now need to t…

This effect of spreading everywhere is very frequently a novice mistake of putting temporary scope-bound loans (AKA references) in structs that aren't temporary views themselves. People used to C or C++ perspective tend to reflexively (over)use references to avoid copying, but references in Rust are to avoid owning , and not-copying is handled in different ways. BTW, apart from edgiest of edge cases, &String is a use…

> and not-copying is handled in different ways

Can you give a few examples?

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#159

Post by imetatroll »

pornel wrote: post #127
unclad5968 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care that it's hard to learn. What turns me off rust is that if I ever make a change that requires a lifetime annotation, I now have to go back through all my code potentially adding lifetime annotations to everything it touches. I was making a little toy compiler in rust and basically gave up when I wanted to make a change that would have amount to string -> string_view in c++ because in rust I now need to t…

This effect of spreading everywhere is very frequently a novice mistake of putting temporary scope-bound loans (AKA references) in structs that aren't temporary views themselves. People used to C or C++ perspective tend to reflexively (over)use references to avoid copying, but references in Rust are to avoid owning , and not-copying is handled in different ways. BTW, apart from edgiest of edge cases, &String is a use…

I am a novice when it comes to rust but as I recall the instant you put anything that isn't a scalar type you need lifetimes. Is that what the person you are replying to frustrated with?

How would not copying be handled?

Sorry for the basic questions. Your comment tickles something in my brain that suggests I need to know.

Re: Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

#160

Post by pdimitar »

merb wrote: post #126
unclad5968 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care that it's hard to learn. What turns me off rust is that if I ever make a change that requires a lifetime annotation, I now have to go back through all my code potentially adding lifetime annotations to everything it touches. I was making a little toy compiler in rust and basically gave up when I wanted to make a change that would have amount to string -> string_view in c++ because in rust I now need to t…

The last few versions made a lot of the lifetimes elided so you can drop them.

Do you have a direct link? I'd love to read more.
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