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posted by takyon on Friday May 15 2015, @10:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the already-rusty dept.

After many years of waiting, version 1.0 of the Rust programming language has finally been released. The Rust home page describes Rust as "a systems programming language that runs blazingly fast, prevents nearly all segfaults, and guarantees thread safety."

Thanks to the hard work of noted Rust core team members Yehuda Katz and Steve Klabnik, Rust is now poised to become a serious competitor to established systems programming languages like C and C++.

The announcement has brought much jubilation to the followers of Rust, who have been eagerly awaiting this milestone release for so long. With only 1,940 open issues and over 11,500 issues already closed, Rust is finally ready for users to build fantastically reliable software systems using it.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday May 16 2015, @10:36AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Saturday May 16 2015, @10:36AM (#183717)

    I'd almost rather use C, LISP, and FORTH because they're different from each other. I have to switch among Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, etc. All of these modern languages are basically the same, but they do everything differently. They have the same basic syntax, but every little thing about them is different. Cognitively it's hard to switch from one similar language to another. I often know exactly what I want to do, but draw a blank on how to do it in any specific language. (Last week, I couldn't remember if JavaScript had a startsWith() method for strings. And why does C# sometimes use mystring.Method() and other times String.Method(mystring)?)

    The problem I have is that I don't even want to look at another language. I don't want to pollute my brain with more ways to do the same thing. I want to use as few languages as possible to make the cognitive task of switching among them easier. Rust may be the greatest thing that has ever happened to programming, but I still don't want to even look at it.

    Love them or hate them, Microsoft is going to get a lot of traction with their .NET on Linux because it will simplify development. C# is the same difference as Java, and if I can use one language on all platforms, I'd be a lot happier.

    You know what's funny? All we hear about is the "shortage" of developers. So why aren't there more industry standard languages? Developers would be more productive if each platform and stack didn't have its own language, and we could reduce some of the extreme fragmentation and standardize on a few core languages. Back in the Good Old Days, knowing C, C++, Perl, and SQL meant a developer could do almost anything on any platform. Now it seems like every platform has a walled garden; a stack of similar-but-different frameworks for ORM, MVC, etc; and one or more programming languages. Hey, corporations, if you can't find developers, why not create industry standards again so that skills are portable?

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
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  • (Score: 1) by jrial on Friday May 22 2015, @07:53AM

    by jrial (5162) on Friday May 22 2015, @07:53AM (#186358)

    A lot of what you point out is exactly how I feel about programming languages, and I always get a lot of flak from other developers for picking one or a couple of languages and never looking beyond them until the job requires it.

    And I can see both sides of the argument: as an amateur blacksmith, I know I have multiple tools to do more or less the same job. I can grind my flats with the flap disc on the angle grinder, or I could use the belt grinder. Or I could do it by hand, using a file and finishing with sandpaper. And depending on the situation, I will choose the correct tool for the job. So I understand when a fellow programmer comes to me and says "whoah, you're going to do that in C++ with these libraries? This is a *perfect* job for node.js! They may be right, it may actually be the better suited language and framework to write this particular thing in. But on the other hand there are a few important differences between having multiple tools for grinding my knives, and having multiple languages to write my projects in:

    1. It doesn't take a lot of effort for someone who only knows how to work with file and sandpaper, to learn to use the angle grinder or the belt grinder and be competent with them straight away. Programming languages require a lot more investment of time and energy before you can do anything useful with them.
    2. In my workshop, I don't have to worry about novice blacksmiths having to do work on a past project that requires them to understand my tools and be proficient with them. At work, having a too heterogenous technology stack is a support nightmare.

    I'm not one of those people who needs to play with the latest and greatest new technology if I already have more than enough technology under my belt to achieve the same thing. It may not be as elegant, it may not be as hip, but it works and it frees me from investing in knowledge that will only be beneficial in a limited set of situations, and probably for a limited time too.

    --
    Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?