A half-hour to learn Rust • Hacker News Board

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#171

Post by ithrow » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

nitred wrote: post #161

As a Python programmer with limited experience with compiled languages, Rust code was more intimidating to read or look at than C++, Java or Go. After only an hour, I am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. I cannot believe that I am smitten by Rust within an hour. Its features seem, obvious. My experience with Go was…

am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can.

All those lifetime annotations are not sheer beauty or pretty, sure they are necessary but not nice to look at if you are comparing it to a higher level language.

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#172

Post by bitL » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

nitred wrote: post #161

As a Python programmer with limited experience with compiled languages, Rust code was more intimidating to read or look at than C++, Java or Go. After only an hour, I am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. I cannot believe that I am smitten by Rust within an hour. Its features seem, obvious. My experience with Go was…

Look into C++17, that one makes C++ look like Python but with worse basic libraries (not that Python ones are great either).

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#173

Post by faitswulff » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

dmitshur wrote: post #149

For anyone curious what a Go version of the same article would look like (as I was), I tried to answer that question by writing https://dmitri.shuralyov.com/blog/27 .

I enjoyed this, thank you!

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#174

Post by the_duke » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

ithrow wrote: post #171

nitred wrote: post #161

As a Python programmer with limited experience with compiled languages, Rust code was more intimidating to read or look at than C++, Java or Go. After only an hour, I am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. I cannot believe that I am smitten by Rust within an hour. Its features seem, obvious. My experience with Go was…

am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. All those lifetime annotations are not sheer beauty or pretty, sure they are necessary but not nice to look at if you are comparing it to a higher level language.

You can write Rust code with almost no lifetine annotations. That's heavily dependent on the domain, of course. But for relatively simple function signatures they are usually inferred correctly, and you can often just clone instead of requiring references.

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#175

Post by mariodiana » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

keyle wrote: post #29

timhigins wrote: post #2

A half-hour to learn Rust Jan 27, 2020 · 51 minute read · rust maybe the site's reading time estimator is broken? sarcasm intended. But seriously, it is good to have people writing things like this.

Programmers don't read, they skim in half the time, then auto-complete in their mind with false assumptions!

Ouch! And just in time for New Year's resolutions. Thanks!

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#176

Post by rapsey » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

ithrow wrote: post #171

nitred wrote: post #161

As a Python programmer with limited experience with compiled languages, Rust code was more intimidating to read or look at than C++, Java or Go. After only an hour, I am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. I cannot believe that I am smitten by Rust within an hour. Its features seem, obvious. My experience with Go was…

am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. All those lifetime annotations are not sheer beauty or pretty, sure they are necessary but not nice to look at if you are comparing it to a higher level language.

All those? Very small amounts of an average Rust code base will have lifetimes.

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#177

Post by ibraheemdev » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

I was inspired by this article and wrote "Twenty minutes to learn Go" [0]. Go being a much simpler language than Rust, I feel that anyone who knows a programming language can become productive in Go in less than an hour. Of course this simplicity comes at the cost of increased boilerplate, less expressiveness...

0: https://ibraheem.ca/posts/go-in-twenty

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#178

Post by rapsey » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #172

nitred wrote: post #161

As a Python programmer with limited experience with compiled languages, Rust code was more intimidating to read or look at than C++, Java or Go. After only an hour, I am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. I cannot believe that I am smitten by Rust within an hour. Its features seem, obvious. My experience with Go was…

Look into C++17, that one makes C++ look like Python but with worse basic libraries (not that Python ones are great either).

Unfortunately one can’t live solely in C++17. The sheer amount of syntax and knowledge required to write C++ productively is insane.

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#179

Post by nitred » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

ithrow wrote: post #171

nitred wrote: post #161

As a Python programmer with limited experience with compiled languages, Rust code was more intimidating to read or look at than C++, Java or Go. After only an hour, I am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. I cannot believe that I am smitten by Rust within an hour. Its features seem, obvious. My experience with Go was…

am overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and mature design of this language - it almost reads like Python or as well as any compiled language can. All those lifetime annotations are not sheer beauty or pretty, sure they are necessary but not nice to look at if you are comparing it to a higher level language.

I agree it's not pretty. It took me several passes to just understand what was going on there. But ownership is something I've never come across before and it doesn't exist in Python (not to an average user anyway), so it seems a little unfair to compare Rust and Python based on that feature.

However when you take a high level feature like overriding operators which can be done elegantly in Python, for a complied language, Rust's way is quite concise, readable and to my eyes quite pretty.

Edit: Typos

Re: A half-hour to learn Rust

#180

Post by miccah » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #111

There's a lot of valuable, condensed knowledge here, but for those who wish to learn the language in a more interactive way I recommend Rustlings: https://github.com/rust-lang/rustlings I spent the last two weeks going through it and so far the experience has been great. There's a quiz at the end of most chapters.

I have been learning rust interactively with Exercism, which uses a mentor system to provide feedback and suggestions.

https://exercism.io/tracks/rust

It's also great to view other learner's solutions once you complete the exercise.