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Why I love Rust

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Re: Why I love Rust

#31

Post by fmstephe »

pcwalton wrote: post #11
middleclick wrote: post #2

I want to spend at least 3-4 months learning a new language but just can't figure out if I should spent time learning Rust or Go. I am thinking more of it from a career perspective than interest.

Speaking as someone who has used both languages, I think you should learn both if you can. Rust will give you experience with low level systems programming (memory management, parallelism, etc.) Go will give you experience with network-facing backend code. Both languages will teach you concurrency. Go is significantly more popular than Rust. But if what you want to learn is a popular language, you shouldn't be lookin…

This is good advice. I am totally confused by the Rust vs Go debate. They occupy such different spaces.

Re: Why I love Rust

#32

Post by IshKebab »

clouddrover wrote: post #9
namelezz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Career wise, you should pick up popular languages, Java/C#/Python/Ruby/JavaScript. Between Go and Rust, I think you should pick Go because there are a significant number of developers from Python/Ruby/JavaScript enjoying programming Go. Many startups start using Go[1] and couple of universities use Go in their classes[2]. Rust targets system development primarily occupied by C/C++ developers. Many still prefer C++ an…

The TIOBE Index for January, 2016 has Java at number one. Rust is at 47 and Go is outside the top 50: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/

TIOBE is stupid. Better to look at job sites if you are choosing for career purposes.

Re: Why I love Rust

#33

Post by shin_lao »

pcwalton wrote: post #17
hellofunk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think you'd go far to spend 3 - 4 months learning C++. Almost every language you can likely encounter in your career will use some feature that will get introduced to you in C++, especially modern C++, and, almost any language will be easier to learn and use after first going through a C++ learning curve. Besides, C++ is still the big player, more than all others. Even Apple's new language Swift is written…

This is a weird answer to the question, especially since Rust very probably has whatever "modern C++ techniques" you were thinking of.

Not really. From a carreer perspective you are 100% certain that there will be a lot of demand for C++ in 5 years (since the whole IT infrastructure is written either in C or in C++), whereas for Rust you are taking a huge bet.

Re: Why I love Rust

#34

Post by derefr »

fmstephe wrote: post #31
pcwalton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who has used both languages, I think you should learn both if you can. Rust will give you experience with low level systems programming (memory management, parallelism, etc.) Go will give you experience with network-facing backend code. Both languages will teach you concurrency. Go is significantly more popular than Rust. But if what you want to learn is a popular language, you shouldn't be lookin…

This is good advice. I am totally confused by the Rust vs Go debate. They occupy such different spaces.

I think the reasoning behind the debate is that, together, they mostly obsolete C/C++. Go takes the high-end and Rust takes the low-end, and there's no niche left for C to occupy in the middle.

I guess the real answer is, if you want to learn "the language that people will be using instead of C in ten years"... learn both of them.

Re: Why I love Rust

#35

Post by wobbleblob »

hellofunk wrote: post #15
middleclick wrote: post #2

I want to spend at least 3-4 months learning a new language but just can't figure out if I should spent time learning Rust or Go. I am thinking more of it from a career perspective than interest.

I actually think you'd go far to spend 3 - 4 months learning C++. Almost every language you can likely encounter in your career will use some feature that will get introduced to you in C++, especially modern C++, and, almost any language will be easier to learn and use after first going through a C++ learning curve. Besides, C++ is still the big player, more than all others. Even Apple's new language Swift is written…

The problem is that C++ is a language where the "top 150,000 most essential things to get you started with C++" is a volume that spans several book shelves. Even Bjarne Stroustrup allegedly rated his own C++ skills at maybe 7 out of 10. If you start with C++, you're committed to a multi year project, that's what it takes to advance from novice to junior level.

Re: Why I love Rust

#36

Post by veidr »

thegeekpirate wrote: post #4
middleclick wrote: post #2

I want to spend at least 3-4 months learning a new language but just can't figure out if I should spent time learning Rust or Go. I am thinking more of it from a career perspective than interest.

From a career perspective, Go is currently the language you'd want to learn. Here's my list of some of the largest companies from a few months ago, excluding a bunch of Chinese ones I haven't heard of (of which there are many, considering that China is most likely Go's largest adopter ( http://herman.asia/why-is-go-popular-in-china) ). Walmart, Apple, Facebook, eBay, Intel, Google, Mozilla, IBM, Microsoft, DigitalOce…

HN didn't like your link touching the parens: http://herman.asia/why-is-go-popular-in-china

Re: Why I love Rust

#37

Post by hellofunk »

wobbleblob wrote: post #35
hellofunk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think you'd go far to spend 3 - 4 months learning C++. Almost every language you can likely encounter in your career will use some feature that will get introduced to you in C++, especially modern C++, and, almost any language will be easier to learn and use after first going through a C++ learning curve. Besides, C++ is still the big player, more than all others. Even Apple's new language Swift is written…

The problem is that C++ is a language where the "top 150,000 most essential things to get you started with C++" is a volume that spans several book shelves. Even Bjarne Stroustrup allegedly rated his own C++ skills at maybe 7 out of 10. If you start with C++, you're committed to a multi year project, that's what it takes to advance from novice to junior level.

Sorry but this is just wrong. You do not need several years to get productive in C++. Very few professional C++ developers are using every feature of the language. You could spend a year mastering template metaprogramming alone, but do you need it? Not most of the time. Interfacing with good C++ libs (another reason to learn C++) does not require metaprogramming, and many other features fall into a the same category. Saying there are 150,000 required learning points is sensationalism and just downright false.

Re: Why I love Rust

#38

Post by threatofrain »

rjayatilleka wrote: post #7
middleclick wrote: post #2

I want to spend at least 3-4 months learning a new language but just can't figure out if I should spent time learning Rust or Go. I am thinking more of it from a career perspective than interest.

I think you should learn Rust, because there are actually things there that you can't learn about in other languages. 1. How to manually manage memory more safely with aid from a borrow checker. 2. If you don't already have experience with an ML/Haskell descent language, it will teach you about more powerful static type systems. 3. General low-level programming concepts that you wouldn't know without experience in C/…

I've only started the read the canonical Go Programming Language book, but I believe that Go also permits shared-memory concurrency, it just advocates for CSP harder.

Re: Why I love Rust

#39

Post by hellofunk »

pcwalton wrote: post #28
hellofunk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not going to be a particularly interesting thread if everyone who works in a language that trends higher than Go on Google chimes in to say "you should learn my language instead, because it's more popular". I think C++ is unique in that it is really not as popular as many new languages, not as trendy and as much in the news, and not even taught as much in college programs, yet, it remains the language where so…

> it remains the language where so many jobs are "The" language where so many jobs are? It's one of many. > As for whether C++ has any techniques to teach that Rust does not, C++ is definitely a unique experience to go through and certainly gives a developer more insight into the actual machine they are working on in a way that few languages do. Can you name, specifically, a way in which C++ gives you "more insight i…

I think that Rust simplifies some things that you must do yourself in C++, and learning how to do them is valuable. At the very least, it will help you appreciate other languages, but it can also show you areas where you get manual control over performance in ways no other language offers.

And, perhaps most significantly, there are a wealth of C++ libraries out there that have no equivalent in other languages, and being able to use them is an education in itself.

Re: Why I love Rust

#40

Post by zvrba »

wobbleblob wrote: post #35
hellofunk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think you'd go far to spend 3 - 4 months learning C++. Almost every language you can likely encounter in your career will use some feature that will get introduced to you in C++, especially modern C++, and, almost any language will be easier to learn and use after first going through a C++ learning curve. Besides, C++ is still the big player, more than all others. Even Apple's new language Swift is written…

The problem is that C++ is a language where the "top 150,000 most essential things to get you started with C++" is a volume that spans several book shelves. Even Bjarne Stroustrup allegedly rated his own C++ skills at maybe 7 out of 10. If you start with C++, you're committed to a multi year project, that's what it takes to advance from novice to junior level.

> If you start with C++, you're committed to a multi year project, that's what it takes to advance from novice to junior level.

This is nonsense. Perhaps it's true to some degree if you try to "learn" C++ from tutorials of dubious quality rather than from a decent book.

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