this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2024
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I know "fun" is subjective but I've heard mixed reviews from devs who have tried rust programming. The compiler is very strict for example.
The compiler grows on you after a bit and generally if you're fighting it, it's trying to prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot. I've heard it depends on what languages you're coming from. Most of my experience is with higher level languages like JavaScript so the issues I ran into while learning rust were opportunities to get a deeper understanding of computers in general.
I could see that being frustrating if you're coming from C/C++ and just want the dang thing to do what you already know how to do.
The way I look at it is that most of my time spent fighting with the compiler is usually made up for in time saved debugging. I'm in the process of RIIRing a hobby project and so far most of the ported code just works, and I only end up needing to fix a few dumb logic mistakes before it's fully up and running.
Coming from Python I feel like it's my partner and best friend. In fact the whole damn tool chain is amazing.
Yeah, Rust tries to find as many problems as it can during compilation. It's great for those of us who want the bugs to be found ahead of release, not great for those who just want something out the door and worry about bugs only after a user reports them.
Different platforms have different values, and that also affects what people consider fun. At the other end of the scale you find the triple-equals languages like js and php, which a lot of people think are fun and normal, but some of us think are so wobbly or sloppy that they're actually much harder languages than other, stricter languages.
If you value correctness and efficiency, Rust is pretty fun.
Yes, it's because it keeps track on object lifetimes and data access when sharing objects, even across threads. It means that once things compiles a whole category of common and often difficult to debug errors are gone. It means much less time debugging and fewer issues once in the hands of the end user. There can still be bugs but it's more about logical errors than difficult memory issues.
As a C++ dev for 20 years, I love Rust. Humans are fallible, even if endeavouring to use safe patterns. Might as well just let the compiler use some CPU cycles on that.
I think new projects in Rust make sense but my - uninformed - opinion is that we should be wary about porting old C/C++ software due to those other classes of bugs you mentioned. The logical type errors I see at work and in open source projects using memory safe languages can be fiendish in their own way.
Rust is amazing. I've been using it for six years now. Being strict is exactly what you want when building anything more complex than fizzbuzz. It's just that people aren't used to it so it makes them uncomfortable enough to not attempt to learn it or see how beneficial it is.
It’s more fun than c and c++ at least.
Silly a thing as is, I have never had a language I enjoyed the way it wrote as much as rust.