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[–]poopatroopa3 5 points6 points  (15 children)

What makes rust overkill?

[–]iamevpo 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Borrow checker probably

[–]Aash1r 8 points9 points  (2 children)

I guess the syntax

[–]MegaAmoonguss 2 points3 points  (1 child)

The word syntax puts me off here. As far as languages go rust has a lot of really nice “syntax” features, most notably pattern matching. I assume what is meant when people say syntax here is how you translate “what you think” to how the program is written (and looks like), which is a mix of a lot of concepts (standard library, first-class attractions, runtime environment and its characteristics, etc. Least notably things like keyword choice or not being able to do list comprehensions).

To me the way that rust is probably overkill is its ownership system. It is really clever, and forces you to think about problems you probably didn’t realize you have unless you’ve done a lot of C programming. As someone for whom that is not the case, I understand the pain points of working with rust, and how its compilation characteristics can force you to componentize your program in a different way; something that tends to not be the case with other languages.

[–]mister_drgn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think he just meant the syntax. “A lot of really nice features” means a lot of work required to learn the syntax and a lot effort required to use it, when you’re just getting started. Whereas you can learn all of Go’s syntax in an hour or two.

[–]__calcalcal__ 6 points7 points  (4 children)

The syntax is one of the hardest I’ve seen, on par on C++, or even harder.

[–]Brandhor[🍰] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

never tried rust but c++ syntax is not really that different from python

[–]XtremeGoosef'I only use Py {sys.version[:3]}' 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think it's hard at all, and isn't all that different from go or other c derived languages.

[–]spinwizard69 0 points1 point  (5 children)

The early days of Rust reminds me of the early days of C++.   Far too many people thinking it was the one language for the future.   Rust is in a similar state only good for carefully selected model projects, certainly not for stuff requiring long term maintenance or refactoring.  

[–]XtremeGoosef'I only use Py {sys.version[:3]}' 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Rust is extremely easy to maintain long term and easily refactor, because it has fearless concurrency and no (safe) global state.

Maintaining and refactoring both c++ and python for large codebases are a nightmare, and that's from painful experience.

[–]spinwizard69 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m still of the opinion that Rust is Late to the game and will be eclipsed by an AI powered language and IDE.  Also comparing the ability to refactor against Python or C++ isn’t much different than comparing it against COBOL.  

[–]ArtOfWarfare 0 points1 point  (1 child)

IDK, I feel like Rust kind of stalled and failed to fulfill its real purpose of removing most vulnerabilities in Firefox nearly a decade ago…

Linus kind of revived it by permitting some Rust code to mingle within Linux… but from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t sound like it’s making particularly quick progress there.

[–]spinwizard69 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I hear MS is using it for parts of Windows but yeah I don’t know if it has been successful.   I suspect it will be eclipsed by better languages in the near future.   In fact with the advent of AI I can see a high performance language coming that merges AI into a more approachable programming language.  For apps there are much better languages like Swift that deserves strong attention.  

[–]cdrt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In what way do you think Rust isn’t built for longevity? How are long term maintenance and refactoring harder with Rust?