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Why should I use rust (as a Go enthusiast)? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I am not hating on Rust. I am honestly looking for reasons why I should learn and use Rust. Currently, I am a Go developer. I haven’t touched any other language for years, except JavaScript for occasional front end work and other languages for OSS contributions.

After working with almost every mainstream language over the years and flitting between them on a whim, I have fallen in love with Go. It feels like ‘home’ to me - it’s comfortable and I enjoy working with it and I have little motivation to use anything else. I rage every time I get stuck working with JavaScript because dependency management is pure hell when dealing with the intersection of packages and browsers - by contrast, dependency management is a breeze with Go modules. I’ll grant that it can suck when using private packages, but I everything I work on is open.

Rust is intriguing. Controlling the lifecycle of variables in detail appeals to me. I don’t mind garbage collectors but Rust’s approach seems far more elegant. The main issue for me is the syntax, specifically generic types, traits, and lifetimes. It looks just about as bad as C++'s template system, minus the latter’s awful compiler errors. After working almost exclusively with Go for years, reading it seems unnecessarily demanding. And IMO the only thing more important than readability is whether it works.

Why should I learn and use rust?

P.S.: I don’t care about political stuff like “Because Google sucks”. I see no evidence that Google is controlling the project. And I’m not interested in “Because Go sucks” opinions - it should be obvious that I disagree.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The main issue for me is the syntax, specifically generic types, traits, and lifetimes.

After working almost exclusively with Go for years, reading it seems unnecessarily demanding.

Like someone else said, this is a complex subject to answer. The syntax looks perplexing and frustrating, until it doesn't. These days, Rust syntax is nowhere in my thought while coding - it like when you drive, you are thinking about where you want to go rather than about manipulating the controls.

Why should I learn and use rust?

Rust''s rules are about enforcing memory safety. But it also ends up forcing you to write better programs than what you imagined you could. It's hard to describe that feeling - you have to experience it. That alone is a good reason to learn it - even if you end up not using it in the future.

Rust's unique design also leads to many design patterns not normally seen in most other languages. That's also worth exploring.

I have fallen in love with Go. It feels like ‘home’ to me

That's a perfectly good thing. It's hard to find that sweet spot. However, don't let that stop you from exploring the alternatives. You might find ideas you could use in Go.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Rust's unique design also leads to many design patterns not normally seen in most other languages.

I've heard quite a few people talk about how good they realised Options were, and that they now try to use that same pattern in other languages like Python. It really does teach you new tricks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know how useful Options are in Python, with its duck typing. Python had something similar to Option::None all along - None. It's possible to use None in Python is very idiomatic and surprising ways. Rust's Some and None are tagged unions. And Rust forces you to address them - unlike Python.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, with the newer optional typing, it became def foo(name: Optional[str]) -> Optional[str]: ... and now def foo(name: str | None) -> str | None: ... (No need to import Optional) It's quite nice.

As for Rust, recall that Result is also a very similar union type. I think a lot of the aversions people have had to static typing have mostly just been about poor expressiveness in clunky type systems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I have been programming in Python for nearly two decades now. This is the first I'm hearing about the Optional improvements to Python's type hints/annotations. Thanks a lot for this. I'm going to take a re-look into type hints.

As for Rust, recall that Result is also a very similar union type.

I'm aware that Rust enums, including Result, are tagged unions. However, my understanding is that it's not like that in Python. Python's duck typing is enabled by typing the values, rather than the variables. A variable can point to a value of any type. Am I getting this wrong? Or is Optional different somehow?