Learn Rust language... Good investment?
Rust is *the most loved programming language for the 5th year in a row* according to the stack overflow survey, yet is still a relatively unknown or uncommon for many programmers. https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-languages It offers C/C++ performance and memory safety. Unlike #golang or #java it doesn't need garbage collector and it is faster than these languages but also avoid security and memory issues of C/C++. Is it a good investment to learn Rust in 2021? Is your team or company planning to adopt Rust for new projects during 2021? #rust #c #c++ #java #python #software #engineering #swe
Stack OverflowI don't see Chrome switching to Rust and from my understanding Go is superior for web services. So Rust may have a niche in the backend of a few large companies but not much more
Just curious why you think golang is better on the web services? I think Firefox migrated some stuff to Rust, but you are right Chrome might not migrate to Rust any time soon. AFAIK Amazon, Facebook are betting on Rust. Not sure though what specific plans they have. But you are right that smaller companies may not care about C/C++ performance.
go isnt superior for anything other than writing unmaintainable code and tricking people into thinking they're productive by writing 10x the lines of a normal languahe
Some news related to what I am talking about... For sure fundamentals are important, but I am speaking as of someone with 10+ years experience in C/C++/Java/etc... not as a fresh graduate. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/why-aws-loves-rust-and-how-wed-like-to-help/ Facebook also doing some investments on it. Projects like Libra and their rewrite of HHVM are in Rust: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Facebook-Rust-HHVM
Some more examples, some of these from Google, Microsoft, Intel, ARM... https://blogs.gartner.com/manjunath-bhat/2021/01/03/why-2021-will-be-a-rusty-year-for-system-programmers/
I've done some reading on the topic. As much as Rust is "loved" it will most likely never replace C/C++ (at least not in the span of the next 20 years). The reasons are that there are too many legacy systems written in those languages and its going to be impossible to rewrite them in Rust. Furthermore c++ is an ever evolving language which has adapted very well and with its current version (20) is as modern as any other programming language out there, but has the advantage of being very performant. In other words the marginal benefits of Rust as published by its creators is offseted by the these two things I mentioned. I would probably invest my time in learning the new features of c++20 and becoming proficient in that.
I couldn’t quite agree with you on just one point. I think creators of rust have already thought about this which is why they don’t need you to rewrite any of the existing legacy systems . Rust can be called from c/++ and vice versa. It can co-exist with legacy code . So there can be more people who adopt rust than you think
I read about that as well. Apparantly the interop with c/c++ is not as easy or as clean as they publish it to be.
As much as I hate C++, the investments put in are big. Learning Rust principles and applying them to an evolving C++ seems like the easier route.
If you are not a system programmer (like me) , rust would force you to learn a lot of intermediate concepts which I think are helpful everywhere (move semantic, concurrency, build systems, proper use of structs, etc). And the community / ecosystem is unmatched. TLDR is irrespective of where rust goes, learning it is a great investment overall. The steep learning curve is definitely rewarding.
if a language is big in the future learn it when you have to work with it. no reason to learn it now.
What language are you using at Google? Are you a SWE? I know there are tens of new programming languages and frameworks every year but this happens to be the most loved one for 5 years in a row in a wide survey... Being ahead of the curve can pay off. Unless you think the survey is not a good indicator?
Imo, the important transferrable skills of swe work include system design, CS concepts, debugging, and leadership/communication. Comparatively, knowledge of a specific language seems unimportant. A talented C++ dev can be productive in rust in a few days. So I don't think there's any point in learning it before necessary.