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I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

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Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#351

Post by Animats »

hot_gril wrote: post #337
Animats wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your answer is something like Go or Node.js, then Rust is probably not the right choice. If your answer is C or C++ or something similar, then Rust is very likely the right choice. I've been saying that for a while. If you're building web backends, Rust is not a good choice. Go is so much easier. The green thread system gets rid of the thread/async distinction, garbage collection means you don't have to obsess o…

> If you're building web backends, Rust is not a good choice This heuristic wouldn't work for my department because we build web backends in C++. I keep telling the most senior devs here that nobody does this and for good reasons (velocity etc), and their response is "who cares what the rest of the world does, they're just bad at C++."

Google developed Go specifically so they didn't have to use C++ in high-volume web backends, which is what they did previously.

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#352

Post by schemescape »

kcartlidge wrote: post #268
schemescape wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to the “compile to a big executable” feature? I’d love to use C# without having to deal with distributing the runtime, so I’d like to hear more!

> I’d love to use C# without having to deal with distributing the runtime, so I’d like to hear more! In the later versions of DotNet there are a couple of common ways to distribute (I'd suggest either DotNet 6 [LTS] or preferably DotNet 7 [current]). You'd usually use the dotnet publish command, which ideally produces one of three things, all of which are self-contained and can be deployed to a clean server without a…

Yes, "dotnet publish" is what I was thinking of. Wow, I didn't realize it could cross-compile!

I can't quite tell from the .NET SDK repository -- any idea if this stuff works on Linux (i.e. building on Linux, perhaps for Windows)? I see mention of MSBuild, so I'm guessing maybe not.

I love C#, but I abandoned it a while ago because I wanted to only rely on open source tools (just to ensure my code is usable in the future). Then, of course, they open-sourced a bunch of stuff (including the compiler). If I at least had the option to develop C# on Linux (with support for cross-compiling to Windows), that would be great (and honestly something I would have never expected 10 years ago).

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#353

Post by dcow »

ReflectedImage wrote: post #336
dcow wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I guess if your typical programming languages are C and C++. Otherwise Rust just has semantics that allow more control over memory, as is often needed in lower level programs, while preventing pointer aliasing. The majority of languages in existence are memory safe--some even more so than Rust. They're just not as flexible.

It's much better than Java, Kotlin and C#. The borrow checker detects the majority (~95%) of concurrency problems. We don't have that many single core CPUs lying around anymore. It's got a story on high performance, high concurrency programs which is significantly better than anything else I've seen so far.

I'll give you that.

The reason I questioned is because in my experience with those languages the 95% problem is not the actual data consistency rather it's locking and synchronization hell that results from needing to make your program threadsafe to ensure data consistency. Rust says, don't get yourself in a situations where you need to do that in the first place, it's not safe. Just clone the data or leak it read only or Cow it.

What Rust does is great, it sets you up so you're never sharing references across threads unless you try really really hard. And that's the source of needing manual synchronization the majority of the time. However, when you do need locks, Rust doesn't do anything to help. In other words, if you copied a Java program to Rust with object instance pointers all over the place, I bet it would feel just as bad in Rust.

So I tend to think of that more as "thread safety" than "memory safety". But we might just be arguing semantics at this point. I agree Rust is far more of a pleasure to work in than Java and C#.

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#354

Post by jjnoakes »

jdlshore wrote: post #311
jjnoakes wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Rust but I am still looking for the perfect blend of the two camps. One the one hand, Go/Node/Python/etc doesn't scratch my itch for the strong type system (sum types/tagged enums mostly) and on the other hand even though I like prototyping in Rust I really miss things like a REPL, more terse syntax, and a bit more expressiveness. I think OCaml is closer to my ideal but the ecosystem isn't quite there. Maybe a…

Have you looked at Node + TypeScript? I'm just starting to dig into TS, but its type system is one of the better ones I've seen. And Node is nice and mature with good async capabilities.

I'd prefer something with a more sound type system, and something that makes cleaning up resources easier and more ergonomic.

This might help with cleanup: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-explicit-resource-managemen...

But I'm not sure anything will help with the type system. For example, this drives me absolutely insane: https://www.typescriptlang.org/play#code/MYewdgziA2CmB00QHMA...

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#355

Post by jjnoakes »

tekkk wrote: post #319
jjnoakes wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Rust but I am still looking for the perfect blend of the two camps. One the one hand, Go/Node/Python/etc doesn't scratch my itch for the strong type system (sum types/tagged enums mostly) and on the other hand even though I like prototyping in Rust I really miss things like a REPL, more terse syntax, and a bit more expressiveness. I think OCaml is closer to my ideal but the ecosystem isn't quite there. Maybe a…

Pick a problem, not a tool first. Unless you're more interested in the tool than the problem, then it's fine. I don't love Rust, but I can get by. TS+NodeJS is okay. But I'm more interested in the problems that I'm solving so I just use whatever is the most suited.

I do that today, but I believe there is still a lot of opportunity for languages to approach my ideal, and I think I share my ideal with others. And if a language like that did exist, or could be made, I'd love to use it - changing languages every project is workable, but you'd probably agree (I hope?) that NOT changing languages every project would be even better.

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#356

Post by cultofmetatron »

jjnoakes wrote: post #276
zeroxfe wrote: post #37

If you're thinking about building something in Rust, a good question to ask is, "what would I use if Rust didn't exist?" If your answer is something like Go or Node.js, then Rust is probably not the right choice. If your answer is C or C++ or something similar, then Rust is very likely the right choice. Obv, there are always exceptions here, but this helps you work through things a bit more objectively. Rust can be a…

I love Rust but I am still looking for the perfect blend of the two camps. One the one hand, Go/Node/Python/etc doesn't scratch my itch for the strong type system (sum types/tagged enums mostly) and on the other hand even though I like prototyping in Rust I really miss things like a REPL, more terse syntax, and a bit more expressiveness. I think OCaml is closer to my ideal but the ecosystem isn't quite there. Maybe a…

its older than rust. its had plenty of time. what ocaml needs is a renaissance and new blood. sadly it doesn't have the momentum of being new but I agree its a compelling language. I see it as a better, typed alternative to go.

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#357

Post by Animats »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #270
zeroxfe wrote: post #37

If you're thinking about building something in Rust, a good question to ask is, "what would I use if Rust didn't exist?" If your answer is something like Go or Node.js, then Rust is probably not the right choice. If your answer is C or C++ or something similar, then Rust is very likely the right choice. Obv, there are always exceptions here, but this helps you work through things a bit more objectively. Rust can be a…

I think it's dismissive and overly simplistic to say that Rust is almost always a better option than C or C++. They're different languages with different strengths. One strength of C++ is that it is far more established than rust - and that comes with a lot of advantages: * It has a larger number of people who know how to work with it * It has a huge catalog of established, fully functional libraries for everything y…

> One strength of C++ is that it is far more established than Rust - and that comes with a lot of advantages:

I'm painfully aware of this. Typical Rust problem, from a reply I made to a posting on Reddit:

* WebGPU dev: WGPU updated to 0.15!

* Me: Might want to hold off on upgrading for a bit. See (bug report on related package)

* WebGPU dev: Good to know. I'll keep this in mind if someone has any issues when following my tutorial

* Me: I'm using Egui/rend3/wgpu/winit/vulkan cross platform on Linux and Windows, with cross-compiling. Getting all those crates to play well together is not easy. Every time something in that stack changes, it's days or weeks of trouble.

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#358

Post by galangalalgol »

adastra22 wrote: post #347
galangalalgol wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given my downvotes you seem to be with the consensus on this one. I had 30 years of c++ development going into rust and I never found myself fighting the borrow checker. Golang seemed the same, just started coding and stuff worked mostly. But, the complexity of rust was familar coming from c++ with generics and macros but without some of the footguns, so it just seemed like power, not clutter. I like go, but I wouldn…

30 years of C++ can inoculate you to the idea of hideous amounts of boilerplate, or worrying about memory allocation timelines and such. I'm a 25 year C++ veteran myself. I recently wrote an asynchronous microservice in C++, because it needed to use a C++ library I'd already written. Took about two weeks of effort, and clocked in at 1500 loc, not counting tests or the half-dozen external dependencies. I rewrote it in…

Go was designed from the ground up for that sort of thing, so that makes sense. And anecdotally asymc/await is a pain in rust. I've only used rust async through other libraries, and not that very often. I usually use plain threads.

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#359

Post by faitswulff »

steveklabnik wrote: post #65

Oxide is a startup and we use Rust for everything except the front end of websites (where we use TypeScript.) In some cases that’s due to hard requirements (embedded) but we use it for web backend cases as well. Iteration time hasn’t been an issue, but compile times can be annoying. Though obviously compile time is related to iteration time. Of course, all of these things are anecdotal. Collecting anecdotes is how yo…

Do you mind my asking what frameworks you're using in Rust on the backend, if any?

Re: I love building a startup in Rust but wouldn't pick it again

#360

Post by steveklabnik »

faitswulff wrote: post #359
steveklabnik wrote: post #65

Oxide is a startup and we use Rust for everything except the front end of websites (where we use TypeScript.) In some cases that’s due to hard requirements (embedded) but we use it for web backend cases as well. Iteration time hasn’t been an issue, but compile times can be annoying. Though obviously compile time is related to iteration time. Of course, all of these things are anecdotal. Collecting anecdotes is how yo…

Do you mind my asking what frameworks you're using in Rust on the backend, if any?

We ended up building one https://crates.io/crates/dropshot

Happy to talk about anything!

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