The Rust team has a very high commitment to stability, and does way more to maintain stability than any other language/compiler I know of (by testing new versions and potentially-breaking-changes against the entire ecosystem)
> still don't (seem) to understand the non technical problems it has.
Just because multiple implementations of Rust don't exist (there are a couple but nothing 100% feature complete iirc) doesn't mean that the community doesn't understand the need for it. Alternate implementations are hard to write and take time. The language is still new, but work is being done towards speccing it (e.g. the unsafe code semantics work being done right now). Note that most languages have gone for years without getting a proper spec or alternate implementations. This is an advantage C has over Rust, agreed. It's usually not a dealbreaker, though.
Yes, but my experience is that they don't seem to manage generating the kind of trust needed to get my peers to give it a serious go. It's a purely social and subjective problem.
>Just because multiple implementations of Rust don't exist (there are a couple but nothing 100% feature complete iirc) doesn't mean that the community doesn't understand the need for it.
As i said, it SEEMS to be so. That means that it is a subjective impression my colleagues and me get. It is the job of the community to generate trust, not the (potential) user's.
>Alternate implementations are hard to write and take time.
Yes, see my P.S. Time will tell if it's worth it to compiler vendors. C made it easy for them right from the start.
>Note that most languages have gone for years without getting a proper spec or alternate implementations. This is an advantage C has over Rust, agreed. It's usually not a dealbreaker, though.
Not a dealbreaker for whom? In the infrastructure and big machine business you will see C, some C++ and Ada. All standardized.
If the Rust community wants to offer an alternative for C, C++ and Ada, AND want Rust to succeed as an alternative, they need to understand that trust (in the toolchain) is generated in different ways in different industries.
What are you talking about? There was a C standard because so many groups picked up C. The Ada mandate actually reduced its uptake with a bit of a rebound latter on when the tech itself was better (esp compilers). C++ got uptake before a standard plus fed into the C standard. So, no, the lack of a standard isn't stopping adoption by industry outside select firms that won't pick up tech unless it has a standards document which often isn't even accurate.
What industry does care about are compilers, IDE's, existing libraries, available talent, ecosystem, who they can pay for support. These things aren't at a level they like yet. Adoption stays low.
Note: Most infrastructure is written in C due to talent and compiler availability more than anything. That's what most embedded people tell me.
As for the rest, i agree.
Sure, there will be some cases where you absolutely need a standardized language. And Rust won't work there for a while at least. But that's a far cry from the picture painted in the original post.
Yes, and that is why those industries will choose to ignore it for a while at least.
Chicken and egg.
> though I suspect multiple implementations will come from elsewhere since we already have a couple partial ones)
>Rust already has lots of folks from other industries trying to use it
I'm not up to date. Input would be appreciated here.
As for specification, https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/1643 is what's currently happening, i.e. specifying exactly how unsafe code behaves (this is more important than specifying the rest). But the rest will come.
As for the industry, https://www.rust-lang.org/friends.html
I'm all for this but I really don't see how Rust's stability can hold a candle to the international standards committees that govern C and C++ (not to mention the investment from the big tech companies in developing and implementing these standards)
That's an orthogonal issue; that's adoption. More adoption means more stability, regardless of whether or not the thing has a standards committee.
Of course Rust can't hold a candle to the level of adoption C has.
> as much they still don't (seem) to understand the non
> technical problems it has.
Yes, for most developers this is true, but not all (see post above). Try looking at it from my perspective. If i suggest to my peers to give Rust a (serious) try and evaluate it for use in a project, this "hardly a priority" generates the impression of "we don't care right now, maybe someday". So they say "fine, i will give it a try in x years, when multiple implementations are available. It the meantime we will wait and C.".
So basically, chicken and egg. Again, the Rust community needs to understand what kind of impressions they generate vs. which impressions they want to they generate.
Update: Just to make that clear, i have to look at it from the perspective of an industry that produces infrastructure and complex, big machines.
Update 2: Fixed typo.
Interesting, but if you try to see the perspective of the Rust developers, they're a relatively small group trying to first develop the strongest language possible, after which other implementations will rise in priority. The idea is, it's better to develop a great language first and focus on other priorities later, rather than having a mediocre language with many implementations. Nonetheless, they're taking the necessary steps.
Agreed, but when is Rust done? 1.0, 2.0, 3.0?
Why does the Rust community talk more about adding optional garbage collection than IEEE standardization and alternative implementations (for example for gcc)?
You see, there's always this "one more feature" before it is a "great language".
If you want to sell it as a C alternative/replacement and keep going this way, it will be neither a technical nor a spiritual successor.
What? There is only one person talking about that, and that's me, and that's pretty low priority right now. There are three people total who are working on it (I worked on the higher level design, and felix/niko/I will implement bits of it at some point) and I don't think any one of us is currently doing anything here.
OTOH there is a whole group of people actively working on standardizing how unsafe code is supposed to behave. There are pushes for standardization elsewhere too, though unsafe code is the more pressing one since that's where actual UB can happen and that's where you need a standard the most. There's a group working on formal verification as well (which could produce a standard as a byproduct). Not sure if there are plans for making it an IEEE standard, but a standard it will be.
Standardization is a topic that crops up pretty regularly in discussions. Optional GC is not.
The type system is still in flux with specialization and a bunch of other type system changes on the horizon. These don't affect language stability, but they do affect how the standard would look since they may completely change how you describe the type system. Starting work on a complete standard right now doesn't make sense with these bits missing.
Edit: it's also not "optional garbage collection", really, it's just hooks so that it's easy to write your own GC, or, more importantly, integrate with another one. Rust is getting a lot of attention from folks wanting to speed up portions of their Python/Ruby/whatever codebase, so having these is important.
Do you know which non technical advantage C has? Multiple implementations. Don't like gcc, use clang. The Keil compiler has a certain bug that screws your project? Use IAR. And so on.
That is one thing. Another thing (at least at the company i work for and the ones i know) is, companies that write code for infrastructure or machines that need to rung a looong time won't ever trust a language (and toolchain) that comes in versions and not in IEEE standards. That may or not be stupid, but it is the reality i've seen so far.
P.S.: Before someone says C only NOW has multiple implementations, yes, at some point in time that was true, but i was VERY easy for compiler vendors to implement a C compiler (speak ROI). Time will tell if this will be true for Rust as well.