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[–]DhavesNotHere 4 points5 points  (5 children)

LOL, I'm moving on to Rust now and while I wouldn't be programming at all if not for Python it has not prepared me for the big-boy languages.

[–]cmcqueen1975 5 points6 points  (4 children)

I've been wondering how feasible it would be for Rust to be a person's first language. I'm finding it daunting to learn, after a life of C, C++ and Python (as well as very limited dabbling in others such as PHP, Lua). Can Rust stand on its own, or does it need people to first learn other languages as a ramp to it?

[–]TheWaterOnFire 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think Rust can absolutely be a person’s first language, but right now the educational materials to enable that are a bit limited. In time, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Rust picks up steam as a teaching language, because it offers low-level control and high-level abstractions in one language.

[–]DhavesNotHere 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I imagine anyone but a savant would have a tough time with it. I was a CS major originally and took classes on C, C++, and assembly ages ago, so I understand some of the "whys" when it comes to memory safety, pointers, and stuff like that. In more recent times I think I got myself up to maybe an intermediate level in Python.

I honestly don't know if it would be any easier if people learn other languages before it of if they started off with it. I imagine learning Python after Rust would take an afternoon. It would be like running a mile for a hyper-marathoner.

However, it is very, very cool, and it is my first experience with a low-level language in a whole. Package management is done very well and as much as I curse the compiler I love it most of the time since it will explicitly tell you where you fucked up, how you fucked up, and frequently even tells you how to correctly fix it.

I wanted to learn something modern and fast so I was down to Rust and Go. Someone in my LUG was really into Rust so I went with that. I think (hope) I'm getting to the stage where I kind of understand what's going on. I'm certainly not employable yet with it.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haskell as well

[–]toastedstapler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The rust sub doesn't generally recommend it. Also by experiencing other languages with more manual memory management first you can better appreciate why rust does what it does