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Rust 1.53

blog.rust-lang.org

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Re: Rust 1.53

#21

Post by zozbot234 »

divtiwari wrote: post #5

Should one learn Rust, lets say after 3-4 years, i.e by mid 2020s, once it becomes more mainstream? The syntax of Rust is a mix of OCaml/C++ and I feel some of the concepts are very esoteric for a normal enterprise Java/C#/JS/Python developer, so it takes a lot of cognitive overload to master it. So is it worth learning now or later?

> I feel some of the concepts are very esoteric for a normal enterprise Java/C#/JS/Python developer

This notion is common among those who are first considering Rust, but also quite overblown in practice. The only thing that reasonably qualifies as "esoteric" in Rust is borrow checking and lifetimes, and these can be mitigated by using very simple idioms/patterns like cloning objects via .clone() or using copy-on-write via Cow.

You can then code with much the same convenience as e.g. Python, Java or C#, but it's also very clear where some potential gains in performance have been left off the table for the sake of rapid development.

Re: Rust 1.53

#22

Post by BadInformatics »

beforeolives wrote: post #15
jagger27 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the English speaking world, I have a hard time justifying untypeable identifiers. Maybe, and this is a fat maybe, Greek symbols could make the odd write-once math or scientific code easier to read. It would be bonkers to use any non-ascii codepoints in a public API.

> Maybe, and this is a fat maybe, Greek symbols could make the odd write-once math or scientific code easier to read. The Julia community has been trying really hard to convince people that this is a good idea and I'm still not on board with it.

It helps here to have good shortcuts (i.e. \tex like commands) for all the symbols. Otherwise writing them is a PITA and nobody will do it (e.g. Go supports full unicode identifiers, when was the last time you saw one in the wild?)

Re: Rust 1.53

#23

Post by freeopinion »

jagger27 wrote: post #12
BelenusMordred wrote: post #2

> Identifiers can now contain non-ascii characters. All valid identifier characters in Unicode as defined in UAX #31 can now be used. That includes characters from many different scripts and languages, but does not include emoji. Don't despair fellow emoji devs, our time will come soon enough.

In the English speaking world, I have a hard time justifying untypeable identifiers. Maybe, and this is a fat maybe, Greek symbols could make the odd write-once math or scientific code easier to read. It would be bonkers to use any non-ascii codepoints in a public API.

Your statement here has so many qualifiers that it's hard to treat it as a general rule.

"English speaking world"

"untypeable"

"public API"

Even then you exempt Greek symbols. I suppose you might be willing to accept ¢ or €. Of course, "untypeable" is very ambiguous.

Still, not all code is "public API" and not all code is intended for the English speaking world. So I think it's great to support non-ASCII symbols.

よろしく

Re: Rust 1.53

#24

Post by zozbot234 »

orthoxerox wrote: post #13
divtiwari wrote: post #5

Should one learn Rust, lets say after 3-4 years, i.e by mid 2020s, once it becomes more mainstream? The syntax of Rust is a mix of OCaml/C++ and I feel some of the concepts are very esoteric for a normal enterprise Java/C#/JS/Python developer, so it takes a lot of cognitive overload to master it. So is it worth learning now or later?

Rust is great as a hobby language, as it tickles some previously unutilized brain patterns. I don't think it's a great replacement for Java/C#. Unless your problem is GC pauses, either language will let you be more productive even when you master the borrow checker simply because their ecosystems are much richer. I can imagine AAA game engines slowly migrating from C++ to Rust, but enterprise applications are already…

> their ecosystems are much richer.

The Rust "ecosystem" can seamlessly expand to include any language with a C ABI and FFI. Solutions are also being developed to ease interop with managed platforms like Java/C#.

Contrast this with something like Go, where even interoperability with C does not come out-of-the-box and requires compromising the most desirable features in the language itself.

Re: Rust 1.53

#25

Post by remexre »

beforeolives wrote: post #15
jagger27 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the English speaking world, I have a hard time justifying untypeable identifiers. Maybe, and this is a fat maybe, Greek symbols could make the odd write-once math or scientific code easier to read. It would be bonkers to use any non-ascii codepoints in a public API.

> Maybe, and this is a fat maybe, Greek symbols could make the odd write-once math or scientific code easier to read. The Julia community has been trying really hard to convince people that this is a good idea and I'm still not on board with it.

Scientific computing is actually a use-case I see this working well in; IMO, it's perfectly fine to have terse code that exactly matches up to equations in a longer paper that justifies correctness, etc. (as long as the paper is easy to find from the code!)

Re: Rust 1.53

#26

Post by rcxdude »

divtiwari wrote: post #5

Should one learn Rust, lets say after 3-4 years, i.e by mid 2020s, once it becomes more mainstream? The syntax of Rust is a mix of OCaml/C++ and I feel some of the concepts are very esoteric for a normal enterprise Java/C#/JS/Python developer, so it takes a lot of cognitive overload to master it. So is it worth learning now or later?

Many people report that learning rust made them a better C++ programmer (because the kind of habits rust enforces are things which good C++ programmers do to avoid memory problems). I would expect this would work with C as well to some degree. In that sense it may be worth learning even if you never really use it professionally.

Re: Rust 1.53

#27

Post by kaba0 »

orthoxerox wrote: post #13
divtiwari wrote: post #5

Should one learn Rust, lets say after 3-4 years, i.e by mid 2020s, once it becomes more mainstream? The syntax of Rust is a mix of OCaml/C++ and I feel some of the concepts are very esoteric for a normal enterprise Java/C#/JS/Python developer, so it takes a lot of cognitive overload to master it. So is it worth learning now or later?

Rust is great as a hobby language, as it tickles some previously unutilized brain patterns. I don't think it's a great replacement for Java/C#. Unless your problem is GC pauses, either language will let you be more productive even when you master the borrow checker simply because their ecosystems are much richer. I can imagine AAA game engines slowly migrating from C++ to Rust, but enterprise applications are already…

Nitpick, but GC pauses are basically no longer a problem with low-latency GCs like ZGC or Shenandoah in the JVM.

Re: Rust 1.53

#28

Post by jagger27 »

freeopinion wrote: post #23
jagger27 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the English speaking world, I have a hard time justifying untypeable identifiers. Maybe, and this is a fat maybe, Greek symbols could make the odd write-once math or scientific code easier to read. It would be bonkers to use any non-ascii codepoints in a public API.

Your statement here has so many qualifiers that it's hard to treat it as a general rule. "English speaking world" "untypeable" "public API" Even then you exempt Greek symbols. I suppose you might be willing to accept ¢ or €. Of course, "untypeable" is very ambiguous. Still, not all code is "public API" and not all code is intended for the English speaking world. So I think it's great to support non-ASCII symbols. よろし…

I was not trying to argue against its general support, only that for this English-speaking audience (HN) there are very limited use cases.

Re: Rust 1.53

#29

Post by kaba0 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #21
divtiwari wrote: post #5

Should one learn Rust, lets say after 3-4 years, i.e by mid 2020s, once it becomes more mainstream? The syntax of Rust is a mix of OCaml/C++ and I feel some of the concepts are very esoteric for a normal enterprise Java/C#/JS/Python developer, so it takes a lot of cognitive overload to master it. So is it worth learning now or later?

> I feel some of the concepts are very esoteric for a normal enterprise Java/C#/JS/Python developer This notion is common among those who are first considering Rust, but also quite overblown in practice. The only thing that reasonably qualifies as "esoteric" in Rust is borrow checking and lifetimes, and these can be mitigated by using very simple idioms/patterns like cloning objects via .clone() or using copy-on-writ…

Disagree - a low level language can’t really mask itself as high level, the abstraction will always leak. Don’t get me wrong, Rust is a really great language and it is a very welcome addition to the for a long time seemingly stagnant low level world, but you won’t be able to refactor logic-related parts “without a thought” on memory layout, even ownership, etc —- something trivially done in high level languages. C++ tried the same thing, without luck.

So for a typical CRUD app, just use one of the litany of high level language frameworks and be done with it.

Re: Rust 1.53

#30

Post by Pet_Ant »

jagger27 wrote: post #12
BelenusMordred wrote: post #2

> Identifiers can now contain non-ascii characters. All valid identifier characters in Unicode as defined in UAX #31 can now be used. That includes characters from many different scripts and languages, but does not include emoji. Don't despair fellow emoji devs, our time will come soon enough.

In the English speaking world, I have a hard time justifying untypeable identifiers. Maybe, and this is a fat maybe, Greek symbols could make the odd write-once math or scientific code easier to read. It would be bonkers to use any non-ascii codepoints in a public API.

I like to use the poop emoji in the names of methods that are dangerous hacks that we want to (eventually) get rid of.

Being harder to type is part of the point.

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