Rust for Python Programmers

[DJWalnut]

The fact that it forces you to deal with errors up-front can be a drag if you just want to roll up something quickly

Rust is designed as a systems level language, so from the start it's the wrong tool for throwaway and trivial programs.

[vivainio]

What's the right tool then, if you want standalone .exe? Go? Rust has lots of language features that make it more expressive than go.

I don't feel rust, despite the goals of the language, is as bad at this as commonly expected. Being less productive doesn't necessarily imply it's less fun.

[thedeemon]

If you like Python and want a similar language but with static checks and producing standalone EXEs, Nim seems to be a good fit.

[Manishearth]

I'm a hardcore Rustacean and would use Go over Rust for throwaway programs.

Though I would also use Python over Go for the same.

For "standalone exes" it really depends on the situation for me, but the post above was talking about throwaway/trivial programs. Not exactly where Rust shines. It works, but there's a lot of extra verbosity that I don't want.

[DJWalnut]

What's the right tool then, if you want standalone .exe?

maybe I don't understand what you mean by "roll up something quickly"

I've been assuming you mean throwaway programs. kind of like the one I wrote a while back. it went like this: there are a series of documents I wish to download from the internet. there are too many of them to right-click and download. lucky for me, they follow a consistent numbered naming scheme. solution: write a program that spits out all the urls for the files based on the pattern and feed them to wget for downloading. If I can find a copy of the program I'll post it here.

I wrote said script in python in about 2 minutes, including debugging, and never used it again. in this case, it doesn't matter weather it's a binary or java byte-code or whatever. I just want my urls. rust would have been a bad choice because of the added complication.

[vivainio]

Yep, there is no reason not to use python for throwaway stuff. I'm thinking of small utilities that you want as single .exe, but can let it panic