Sometimes the more you learn about something the less you like that thing:
gemini://aelspire.info/posts/2023-09-07-disillusioned-about-rust/post.gmi
Anybody have any comment on it? Maybe I'm making a mistake here…
5 months ago · 👍 falschdenker, arubes, gemalaya, docedelgas, lykso
[1] gemini://aelspire.info/posts/2023-09-07-disillusioned-about-rust/post.gmi
I forgot to add some context why I mentioned other languages I know: I strictly looking for fun language to use in hobby programming. So it might actually suck for any professional use as long as I personally will have fun using it. I would also want to add important disclaimer: I'm just some guy over internet. Take my opinion lightly as it was based on my personal values and I can be wrong or our values can be just incompatible with each other so the most fun language for you can be different. · 4 months ago
docedelgas: I highly value simplicity. I've read some standard library code from Zig, Rust and Hare and Hare is easy to understand but managed to understand all of them. I like Hare and QBE compiler backend because simplicity. This is nowhere close to objective opinion and I already know and use C, C++, Python, JavaScript and Go in my day job but I didn't want to write my hobby-time project in any of them because of various reasons so I was looking for yet another language which will suit me better and I'll have fun with it. Zig comes close but I think I prefer Hare and QBE simplicity instead of Zig with LLVM (Zig plans to make LLVM optional, tho). · 4 months ago
Out of curiosity, what made you decide to use Hare as a Rust replacement, instead of other languages? For context, I am interested in both languages, but I haven't really started to do any serious programming in either. · 4 months ago
Thanks mcoffin! The serde issue just made me fully aware how terrible the combination of build.rs/proc_macro + little moderated crates.io is. Basically making typo in your dependency when testing some concept in separate project can compromise your machine. Maybe mythical "real" programmer should review code of all 600 dependencies of their hello world program (yup, I'm overexaggerating here but you know the point…) but sometimes I need quick program for testing idea and I'm guilty of skipping some important steps to get results faster… · 5 months ago
Rather than seeing these things as a community and project headed in the wrong direction, to me, they appear more as inevitable disturbance that the "next big" set of innovations would always bring. Don't get me wrong, I'm not comfortable with the way things work right now, expecially w/r/t proc macros, and *definitely* the shipping of binaries, but maybe I see these as challenges we'll have to figure out how to address to keep progressing, rather than as a sign to step backwards · 5 months ago
I agree with a lot of your sentiments, especially revolving around the serde situation; I really don't understand that one, or why the project maintainers would even really go after making that decision in the first place. While "trusting" compile-time execution of effectively compiler plugins is a *very* new concept, I think overall the benefits, for me, have far outweighed the risk(s). · 5 months ago