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A comment on Find Files (Ff) – File Search Utility in Rust. Parent comment

Re:Find Files (Ff) – File Search Utility in Rust by madmax96 on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @12:28PM (#19264969)
>they also demonstrate solutions that are now possible thanks to Rust

This seems specious. If I started a grep implementation from scratch in C{,++}, it isn't clear to me that I couldn't achieve the same (or better) results as ripgrep. Comparing a totally rewritten program to one designed decades ago and concluding 'without Rust, we wouldn't have this faster program with better hardware use' doesn't seem quite right.

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Re:Find Files (Ff) – File Search Utility in Rust by burntsushi on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @12:38PM (#19265071)
You are right. You could. I've said as much numerous times in the past, but this doesn't unfortunately stop folks from saying that the performance difference is directly attributable to Rust. The performance difference is primarily attributable to algorithms.

I have, though, said in the past that I wouldn't have written ripgrep without Rust, which is a very different claim and is opinionated, and mostly a statement about developer productivity and maintenance burden. With Rust, it is very easy to keep ripgrep's trains running across Windows, macOS and Linux.

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