Re:Rust 1.17
by kbenson on Thursday April 27, 2017 @04:56PM
(#14214629)
> It may be safer, but not as "ergonomic" subjectively
Perhaps what we really need for the engineering that really calls for this class of product (a systems language), is not more ergonomics, but an acceptance that some small sacrifice in ergonomics and possibly productivity is a small price to pay to make some real headway in the problem of actually providing correct software? Cutting of entire classes of errors and subsequent exploits is an enormous gain for such a small price.
Put another way, every bug you allow through that could have been found with more diligence is really you offloading development time, effort or cost onto your users. That's not to say unlimited time should be spent during development to find bugs, but there is a trade-off happening, and I would hazard that most developers spend less time than they should. In these terms, I think Rust is an amazingly productive language regardless of whether it seems harder to use and makes you feel somewhat less productive.
Perhaps what we really need for the engineering that really calls for this class of product (a systems language), is not more ergonomics, but an acceptance that some small sacrifice in ergonomics and possibly productivity is a small price to pay to make some real headway in the problem of actually providing correct software? Cutting of entire classes of errors and subsequent exploits is an enormous gain for such a small price.
Put another way, every bug you allow through that could have been found with more diligence is really you offloading development time, effort or cost onto your users. That's not to say unlimited time should be spent during development to find bugs, but there is a trade-off happening, and I would hazard that most developers spend less time than they should. In these terms, I think Rust is an amazingly productive language regardless of whether it seems harder to use and makes you feel somewhat less productive.