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Discussion on: 5 Powerful Programming Languages to Stretch Your Brain

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tinco profile image
Tinco Andringa • Edited

Rust replaces C/C++ on this list. You say there's no other language that will make you really understand how memory, threading and CPU works, but that's no longer true. Since we have Rust now we no longer need C or C++, unless it is to maintain/interact with existing C++ code.

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kamit28 profile image
Amit Kumar

Rust doesn't really replace anything. Still to this date all the important low level programs are being written in either C or C++.

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Jacob Herrington (he/him)

There are plenty of important things being done in the Rust space. There are more than 400,000 line of Rust in Firefox, iirc.

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vimmer9 profile image
Damir Franusic • Edited

OK please don't make this a language wars thread. I've never used Rust and although it might be awesome, it takes years for a compiled language to become trully stable and get close to being bug free. Firefox is not really a poster child of stability. The best test for any technology, a language in this case, is a test of time.

Rust could become the future C/C++ alternative, lest it become another ghost of a good project. Years ago it was D, now it's Rust; C and C++ aren't going anywhere.

Time is a ruthless judge and jury.

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tinco profile image
Tinco Andringa

Not all of them.

 
tinco profile image
Tinco Andringa

D is not a zero cost abstraction language like C, C++ and Rust are. I was just correcting you on the point that you made about C and C++.

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vimmer9 profile image
Damir Franusic

I only mentioned it since it was highly praised not so long ago. What point was that? You mean the test of time point I made?

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tinco profile image
Tinco Andringa

Ah, just this one:

"there's no other language that will make you REALLY understand how memory, threading and CPU works."

I was just correcting that because it's a common misconception amongst C/C++ programmers. For decades they've deflected competitors like Java, D and Go with the argument that they're nice programming language, but there will still be a place for C/C++ because of its direct reasoning about memory and its ability for zero cost abstraction.

Rust is the first serious competition to C and C++ in this regard. It is a full replacement of C/C++, it does not abstract away anything.

I would also argue your test of time point, but you said you don't want a language wars thread so I'll refrain.

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vimmer9 profile image
Damir Franusic • Edited

Good point and appreciate the argument. I never claim to know everything and it's always useful to gain extra knowledge. Please comment on the stress of time test, I'm interested in your arguments regarding. What I meant with not wanting language wars is a thread along the lines of "A is better than C", without stating hard facts and reproducible arguments.

Thanks for demystifying Rust for me 😁

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tinco profile image
Tinco Andringa

Well the argument would be that since Rust is built on LLVM, and actually maps quite closely to the semantics of C, there already is decades worth of production tested compiler infrastructure beneath it.

Of course there still are bugs from the rest of the architecture, but I'd recommend you check out the way the compiler is being built. It is a lot more structured and well organized than most other projects I know of (both open source and commercial), I'd bet we're getting to the point where a new release of Rust has more structured and well thought out decisions made on it then for example C++20 would have, but then I'm crossing into more subjective territory so I won't make any hard statements there.

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vimmer9 profile image
Damir Franusic

Well congratulations for sparking my interest in Rust. I understand your LLVM argument in favour of Rust; it has its merits. Also, function arguments in Rust remind me of Pascal which was my first programming language, the one that got me hooked to programming. Who knows, maybe I will finally find a friend for my goold old C buddy 😁. I've done a lot of C++ and it was that final disdain that made me use C exclusively. I'm going to keep my eye on Rust, thanks.