Re:The struggle with Rust
by Bartweiss on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @10:18AM
(#13471961)
> You mean it's okay for everyone to struggle to work with JavaScript for years and years trying to come up with an OO system and a module system and trying to just bundle the files for the browser, but it's not okay to spend months on getting intimately acquainted with the language?
You're saying that like those things are a contrast, not two incarnations of the same issue. Safe-and-usable is the holy grail for exactly this reason - right now we have usable-but-unsafe. Javascript isn't a few months to get acquainted: it's a few days to get passable results and a lifetime to get good ones.
So there's a huge need for a better mainstream tool, because the alternative is letting the existing ones endure. That doesn't have to be Rust - there's plenty of space for languages that are hard, but good for key applications like safe browsers. But it has to be something - lecturing people doesn't actually reduce reliance on easy-to-learn, hard-to-secure options.
You're saying that like those things are a contrast, not two incarnations of the same issue. Safe-and-usable is the holy grail for exactly this reason - right now we have usable-but-unsafe. Javascript isn't a few months to get acquainted: it's a few days to get passable results and a lifetime to get good ones.
So there's a huge need for a better mainstream tool, because the alternative is letting the existing ones endure. That doesn't have to be Rust - there's plenty of space for languages that are hard, but good for key applications like safe browsers. But it has to be something - lecturing people doesn't actually reduce reliance on easy-to-learn, hard-to-secure options.