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.
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.