Do you actually think that Rust can and should replace all or most other programming languages?
No, Rust is the wrong tool for that. Rust is a good choice if your working on low level code or have high speed requirements. Like 95% of the time it is a better decision to trade some speed and space for better productivity. I would even argue that we don’t push simplicity enough. Computers are becoming faster and faster, we should create simpler programming languages that use more resources.
In my ideal world we would write operating systems and drivers in Rust and all other things in a Lisp like language. Yes Lisp, because Lisp is decades ahead of what most other programming languages offer and at the same time Lisp is very simple at its core. The developer workflow is totally superior, to an extend, that when explaining it to a normal developer, it will be outside of the scope of understanding. Not because its difficult, but because it is so different. Too bad, that a lot of Lisp languages are outdated and have a not so practical std lib for today’s world. This doesn’t change the fact that Lisp is IMHO the best solution to programming humanity has invented. If you don’t believe me that Lisp like languages are so fare ahead, watch this talk . There are a lot of interesting and very good ideas outside of the usual programming world that should be used by the mainstream (no I don’t think Clojure is THE language, they just have some good videos online).
Computers are becoming faster and faster, we should create simpler programming languages that use more resources.
Devs thinking like this are the reason our chat apps and some text editors are in electron, wasting tons of system resources, by running what is essentially its own operating system, chromium.
Just to give an idea, here’s some things I have running on my laptop right now:
App | Ram
| -
Signal Desktop (Electron) | 368 Mb
Lightcord (Discord, Electron) | 367 Mb
Element (Electron) | 212 Mb
Before electron, back in the AIM / IRC / MSN messenger days, these were tiny programs easily runnable on a 256 MB ram machine.
This article is about website bloat, but it equally applies to so many of our chat apps that went from using system libraries and GUI frameworks, to the browser.
When an app is installed on millions of devices, making it more efficient can actually make a not insignificant difference in overall power consumption, and therefore environmental impact.
Amen! Electron is a scourge. Look at MicroSIP, a full SIP chat and call client done in MFC. Exe is 3 MB, uses less that 10 MB RAM. Runs super stable, super quick (native GUI) and light enough to always be on.
It seems like you misunderstood my point. By saying that we should use more resources to make computing simpler I meant something like using a garbage collector, which trades some computing cycles and memory for better productivity and not something like bloating stuff up by using Electron. A lot of programming languages where designed when computers where slower and had not much memory. I would happily give 5% of performance and memory to have another improvement in productivity like the invention of the garbage collector gave us.
… and now it actually feels more productive than Java.
Java has always been full of boilerplate code, therefor it never really was very productive (maybe when compared to C++). I don’t get why anyone still writes Java, when there is Kotlin.
Java code is approximately 50% shorter than C++ code
Kotlin code is approximately 50% shorter than Java code
Haskell code is approximately 80% shorter than Kotlin code
→ what takes one pages in C++, takes 2-4 lines in Haskell.
To the Nushell discussion: Nu is my main shell and I have contributed a bit of code to it in the past.
I completely disagree with you on Rust productivity. Its true that there is a very steep learning curve, and during that time productivity can be low. But I have used Rust for almost one year now, and now it actually feels more productive than Java. Simply because entire classes of errors are eliminated, and I don’t have to debut them. Instead I can quickly iterate on high level changes. Runtime performance is nothing but a nice bonus.
No, Rust is the wrong tool for that. Rust is a good choice if your working on low level code or have high speed requirements. Like 95% of the time it is a better decision to trade some speed and space for better productivity. I would even argue that we don’t push simplicity enough. Computers are becoming faster and faster, we should create simpler programming languages that use more resources.
In my ideal world we would write operating systems and drivers in Rust and all other things in a Lisp like language. Yes Lisp, because Lisp is decades ahead of what most other programming languages offer and at the same time Lisp is very simple at its core. The developer workflow is totally superior, to an extend, that when explaining it to a normal developer, it will be outside of the scope of understanding. Not because its difficult, but because it is so different. Too bad, that a lot of Lisp languages are outdated and have a not so practical std lib for today’s world. This doesn’t change the fact that Lisp is IMHO the best solution to programming humanity has invented. If you don’t believe me that Lisp like languages are so fare ahead, watch this talk . There are a lot of interesting and very good ideas outside of the usual programming world that should be used by the mainstream (no I don’t think Clojure is THE language, they just have some good videos online).
Devs thinking like this are the reason our chat apps and some text editors are in electron, wasting tons of system resources, by running what is essentially its own operating system, chromium.
Just to give an idea, here’s some things I have running on my laptop right now:
App | Ram
Before electron, back in the AIM / IRC / MSN messenger days, these were tiny programs easily runnable on a 256 MB ram machine.
This article is about website bloat, but it equally applies to so many of our chat apps that went from using system libraries and GUI frameworks, to the browser.
When an app is installed on millions of devices, making it more efficient can actually make a not insignificant difference in overall power consumption, and therefore environmental impact.
I’d love if someone did that calculation too. Could be a LOT of watt-hours per day just wasted by things like discord.
The KDE project has been focusing on sustainability, as a system efficiency metric, for some time now.
If you’d like to read more.
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Amen! Electron is a scourge. Look at MicroSIP, a full SIP chat and call client done in MFC. Exe is 3 MB, uses less that 10 MB RAM. Runs super stable, super quick (native GUI) and light enough to always be on.
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Yeah its hard to find these things, apparently privacy is better and they removed some of the tracking, but you still can’t be too sure.
It seems like you misunderstood my point. By saying that we should use more resources to make computing simpler I meant something like using a garbage collector, which trades some computing cycles and memory for better productivity and not something like bloating stuff up by using Electron. A lot of programming languages where designed when computers where slower and had not much memory. I would happily give 5% of performance and memory to have another improvement in productivity like the invention of the garbage collector gave us.
Java has always been full of boilerplate code, therefor it never really was very productive (maybe when compared to C++). I don’t get why anyone still writes Java, when there is Kotlin.
→ what takes one pages in C++, takes 2-4 lines in Haskell.
To the Nushell discussion: Nu is my main shell and I have contributed a bit of code to it in the past.
I completely disagree with you on Rust productivity. Its true that there is a very steep learning curve, and during that time productivity can be low. But I have used Rust for almost one year now, and now it actually feels more productive than Java. Simply because entire classes of errors are eliminated, and I don’t have to debut them. Instead I can quickly iterate on high level changes. Runtime performance is nothing but a nice bonus.