Discussion
Question for programming people: Everyone is taking about how good Rust is for memory safety.
I'm seeing the same talking points that I heard in high school when learning Java
Why is Rust so much more popular than Java? Is it just that much more pleasant to use?
@Canageek My current main toolchain is Kawa Scheme, which compiles to JVM. I avoid touching Java-the-language if I can possibly help it, but my nice Scheme code outputs a Java JAR, which seems to run well & has an OK GUI on Mac, BSD, Linux, Windows, without my having to do anything else. Hooray!
Rust has no such things. It can make single-platform binaries, potentially including a GUI if you want to learn each one's API & do "unsafe" operations.
oldbie take: there is less legacy code.
It is exciting to build new libraries to do something which already has a standard in [other older languages] It is harder to find break-through projects to do in Lisp, Cobol, or whatever the hated-old-language-du-jour happens to be.
Reason enough for creating new development languages right there.
New languages help devs develop skills, rep, networks, and communities. They reflect generational shifts in world view, digital evolution too.
@Canageek I’ve never developed in Rust myself (I did in Java and several other languages). My feeling is, while the differences are at face value not enormous, they are the kind of differences that a lot of programmers really like. For instance, Java has some automated features that can be really really handy, but also a bit black box and unpredictable. Rust doesn’t have those handy automated features but helps you to write your code in such a way that they’re not needed.
@Canageek Probably less pleasant, but it is meant for faster, lower-level programming. It is sold as a C replacement for stuff that has to be really fast, but without the wild absurd things that C allows.
Java tries to solve (some) of those issues with the garbage collector, it manages the memory during execution time (using the "java virtual machine") so it makes the software slower. Java, in comparison to C and C++, also doesn't have pointers... but these days that is more of an uniquely bad thing in C/C++.
Many other high-level languages will also have garbage collection or other features to improve memory safety (for example they will run diagnostics during execution to catch any invalid references).
But one of the main reasons people still use C (and to some degree C++) is precisely because they are lower-level and avoid these overheads, and Rust tries to replace that use - by using compile-time checks, and a syntax that tries to force (or at least encourage) better, safer practices.
@Canageek But also Rust isn't "much more popular", it is slowly reducing the difference but it is at best barely making into the top 10 most used languages (it doesn't even makes top 20 in some rankings) while Java remains in 3rd to 5th place.
It has a lot of people very excited, and there is a lot of effort to migrate projects (in particular those that are in C) to it. The fact it is so widely used despite being much newer (Java for example has decades of old projects, experience and support) also means it is huge, but at the same time people simply talk more about it because it is new (ish).
@Canageek Java actually delivered on memory safety by having a virtual machine that is MUCH simpler than the language or a real CPU, so you can verify it & prevent any jiggery-pokery with memory.
Rust is like C with "safe mode" bolted on, you constantly have to do it yourself, manage when memory is accessed & released, but the compiler screams at you if you don't follow its rules. It is safer than C but only by making you work 10x as hard.
Rust Evangelism is a death cult.