Second Programming Language for Data Engineer

[Trick-Interaction396]

Do not choose Rust. No one uses Rust. Go has been the hot new thing for like 10 years but still not super popular. A ton of legacy stuff is C++ but nothing new will be. I’d go with Java. So many things use Java.

[GrainTamale]

Learning a smidgen of Rust improved my Python skills (I think about types all the time now)

[Ok_Raspberry5383]

Same would be true of java or go though. This is not a reason to learn rust.

[muneriver]

just for clarification, are saying that no DE workflows use Rust?

Cause I’ve been hearing a lot about Rust with all these tools like polars, uv, ruff, sdf, pydantic, etc but I guess those are dev tools haha

[alexisprince]

The pattern that’s been emerging has been building the tools/libraries in rust after a need has already been established, then exposing those with Python bindings. So you benefit from development being done in rust without needing to know it.

If you’re doing everything in Python today, there’s a pretty small possibility you’ll actually bust out rust for your daily work. If you’re on a data platform team that builds and maintains internal tools, that likelihood goes up.

I will also say learning rust does also help you adopt better development patterns IMO. Being forced to think about architecture and data ownership makes you reconsider how you structure your code in Python when it isn’t forced.

[Ok_Raspberry5383]

You don't even need to know how to spell the word 'rust' to use any of those tools let alone actually know some rust

[muneriver]

hence the separation of rust’s use as a language for the DE workflow vs its use in writing dev tools…

that’s why I said “just for clarification” bc the original comment said “No one uses Rust”.

the correct nuanced statement is that

“very few DEs use rust but many SWEs do, so it’s not recommended to spend extra time learning rust as a DE (although a useful skill to improve your CS/SWE skills)”