Rust is for Professionals • Hacker News Board

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#21

Post by ocschwar » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

CJefferson wrote: post #16

ahelwer wrote: post #12

Here I am on day three of an attempt to modify a rust program with logic that would have taken about twenty minutes to implement in C# or Java. It has to do with operations on strings (use a regex to find a string in some text, escape all the regex-reserved characters in that string, then use the string as a regex to find other occurrences of itself in the text) so I get that I'm really thrown into the borrow-checker…

While this can be painful, my basic suggestion -- clone more. The temptation is to never clone, butin C++ people run copy constructors all the time without thinking about it (as they are called automatically).

Cloning means runtime inefficiency, but the cost is so pathetically small compared to the amount of code we run in Python and Java with their larger footprints. Yes. Clone more.

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#22

Post by nemo44x » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #12

Here I am on day three of an attempt to modify a rust program with logic that would have taken about twenty minutes to implement in C# or Java. It has to do with operations on strings (use a regex to find a string in some text, escape all the regex-reserved characters in that string, then use the string as a regex to find other occurrences of itself in the text) so I get that I'm really thrown into the borrow-checker…

Yes, lots of up front things that pay off after your code base gets larger and/or you ship.

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#23

Post by otabdeveloper4 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #11

colesantiago wrote: post #3

TL;DR? That looks like a very long essay / dissertation just to say 'I love rust'.

It is. It's not going to replace Python, and if maintenance is the metric, then "rewrite it in rust" is not the right move. But I do think Rust will gain traction, be a round a long time, and slowly become a complement to existing C/C++ ecosystems through wrapping and binding. I'm just not sure the other way will materialize. Until Rust can be used to feed back into C/C++ ecosystems and long-standing projects (like t…

At this point Rust is not the prmary ecosystem for anything.

The important and exciting new things are written in C++, not Rust. Rust has no advantages over C++ once you know C++.

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#24

Post by xena » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

ocschwar wrote: post #21

CJefferson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this can be painful, my basic suggestion -- clone more. The temptation is to never clone, butin C++ people run copy constructors all the time without thinking about it (as they are called automatically).

Cloning means runtime inefficiency, but the cost is so pathetically small compared to the amount of code we run in Python and Java with their larger footprints. Yes. Clone more.

Doesn't the compiler optimize out clones when it can?

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#25

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #12

Here I am on day three of an attempt to modify a rust program with logic that would have taken about twenty minutes to implement in C# or Java. It has to do with operations on strings (use a regex to find a string in some text, escape all the regex-reserved characters in that string, then use the string as a regex to find other occurrences of itself in the text) so I get that I'm really thrown into the borrow-checker…

[deleted]

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#26

Post by sanxiyn » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #12

Here I am on day three of an attempt to modify a rust program with logic that would have taken about twenty minutes to implement in C# or Java. It has to do with operations on strings (use a regex to find a string in some text, escape all the regex-reserved characters in that string, then use the string as a regex to find other occurrences of itself in the text) so I get that I'm really thrown into the borrow-checker…

You can't learn Rust by StackOverflow, that just doesn't work. It is well known, I repeat this everytime I see it happening, and they never listen. It's deeply frustrating.

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#27

Post by CodeIsTheEnd » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

ocschwar wrote: post #15

The title implied that it's not for amateurs, and now that I have some data about Rust and teenagers, I can say it very much IS for teenagers. After one afternoon wrestling with GDB and C code, they're ready to put up wrestling with the borrow checker.

While in many cases that may be the implication, the author clearly states that is not their intention in the first few paragraphs:

> The statement Rust is for Professionals does not imply any logical variant thereof. e.g. I am not implying Rust is not for non-professionals.

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#28

Post by sanxiyn » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

xena wrote: post #24

ocschwar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloning means runtime inefficiency, but the cost is so pathetically small compared to the amount of code we run in Python and Java with their larger footprints. Yes. Clone more.

Doesn't the compiler optimize out clones when it can?

No, not really.

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#29

Post by ajross » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #12

Here I am on day three of an attempt to modify a rust program with logic that would have taken about twenty minutes to implement in C# or Java. It has to do with operations on strings (use a regex to find a string in some text, escape all the regex-reserved characters in that string, then use the string as a regex to find other occurrences of itself in the text) so I get that I'm really thrown into the borrow-checker…

That's where I always end up when I start playing with Rust too. At this point I genuinely think I've given up on belief that the "borrow checker" paradigm is ever really going to be broadly successful (vs. "screw it, just do it in ").

Problems with well-constrained allocation paradigms do really well in rust. Problems with reading/parsing/storing messy data structures from external data just really, really hurt.

I think a big part of the problem is that the ownership analysis layer has the dual crises of being (1) really complicated and too hard to keep in your head as a single model and (2) specified in an ad-hoc way that resists formal rules. So eventually you end up in of those puzzles like you mention where... there's just no answer! No one's been where you have, and the lack of rigor means you end up trying to reverse engineer the compiler front end trying to find the trick that works. And then you give up and write it in Go or Python or whatever.

Re: Rust is for Professionals

#30

Post by tylerhou » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

xena wrote: post #24

ocschwar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloning means runtime inefficiency, but the cost is so pathetically small compared to the amount of code we run in Python and Java with their larger footprints. Yes. Clone more.

Doesn't the compiler optimize out clones when it can?

Probably not; detecting unnecessary clones is expensive for non-trivial cases. If a human can't prove that the clone isn't necessary (by writing the code in such a manner that the borrow checker accepts), I doubt the compiler could.