Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems programming language?

Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by pcwalton on Monday April 10, 2017 @05:50PM (#14082871)

Because "addressing" the concerns would make Rust a worse language.

1. Removing structs and interfaces (in favor of what? Java-style classes and interfaces?) would make Rust more verbose, less of a systems language, and slower at runtime due to the indirect dispatch.

2. Changing the keyword "enum" to something else is a cosmetic change which would make as many users unhappy as it made happy. (We know, because we solicited feedback on the keyword before selecting it!)

3. I've addressed error handling in the sibling comment. There's basically no other way to do it that would be in line with Rust's goals as a systems language.

4. Rust would be a worse language if it lacked closures. Closure support is a basic feature in a modern language.

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by soulbadguy on Monday April 10, 2017 @05:56PM (#14082910)

Nitpick : > 1. Removing structs and interfaces (in favor of what? Java-style classes and interfaces?) would make Rust more verbose, less of a systems language, and slower at runtime due to the indirect dispatch. Classes and interface can be implemented without indirect dispatch...

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by pcwalton on Monday April 10, 2017 @06:05PM (#14082959)

Only if you monomorphize interfaces—which gives you Rust's traits.

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by soulbadguy on Monday April 10, 2017 @08:46PM (#14083928)

No. THe fundamental difference is that rust traits cannot convey structural information , classes (java and c++ can)

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by steveklabnik on Monday April 10, 2017 @09:04PM (#14084028)

There's an open (and desired) RFC for this. It's not likely to happen soon since it's not a super high priority, but I'd be willing to bet it gets merged in the future.

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by soulbadguy on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @12:34PM (#14089725)

Fair enough, as long as we agree that classes/struct in C++/java a quite a different beast than just monomorphic traits.

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by steveklabnik on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @12:47PM (#14089871)

Absolutely, you're totally right with regards to today.

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by sidlls on Monday April 10, 2017 @05:54PM (#14082897)

I didn't suggest changing the Rust language. There are other ways to address concerns than by saying "you're wrong," which is effectively what your comment did.

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by mmstick on Monday April 10, 2017 @07:44PM (#14083576)

Nothing wrong with pointing out that someone's logic is wrong. It is true that the only way to address these 'concerns' is to change Rust into something that it is not. Rust without closures, structures, traits, pattern matching, and algebraic data types would not be Rust, it would be C. We don't want C.

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by soulbadguy on Monday April 10, 2017 @06:03PM (#14082947)

Unless the person actually happens to be... you know wrong... Which does happens sometime.

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