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

Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by thristian on Monday April 10, 2017 @07:00PM (#14083325)

Some people don't want to use exceptions because of runtime overhead costs.

If exceptions are just "an option" that a library can choose when designing its interface, then you'll get a split ecosystem: a bunch of libraries that do use exceptions for error-handling, and then a separate bunch of libraries that do the same thing, but don't use exceptions for error handling, which is wasted, redundant effort.

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Re:Ask HN: Will Rust ever become a mainstream systems progra... by btschaegg on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @02:03AM (#14085231)

> then you'll get a split ecosystem

Agreed. Point in case: Have a look at D and the discussions about their GC.

I haven't kept up much about the last year, but my general impression runs down to: If you want to use their standard library. There's gonna be garbage collection. Period. If you want to avoid it, enjoy implementing its functionality all by yourself.

With rust and exceptions you would likely not have a problem with the main ecosystem, but the same problem is bound to pop up with some big & famous library.

Edit: Similarly, exceptions are one of the reasons C++'s SG14 exists.

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