[TUHS] Re: yet another C discussion (YACD) and: Rust is not C++

[segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org>]

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My understanding is it might "look and feel" more C++-ish than C, but what it is doing under the hood for memory safety and such results in code much closer in candor to C.

C++ relies on a pretty hefty stack of runtime for things that Rust takes care of much earlier through concepts like ownership. The result is that things like memory safety are handled by the compiler's analysis rather than libraries. Sure you may have more modern-looking OOP constructs, but my understanding is those constructs are closer to syntactic sugar than what most C++ environments do with constructing/destructing, passing pointers, concurrency, etc.

Of course, I'm no expert so I'm just speaking from my own experiences with the two languages, but my understanding is Rust is a C-ish systems language parading around in fancy modern clothes, but it achieves most of its more sophisticated functionality at compile time rather than relying on a bunch of runtime code to keep everything rolling.

I don't think Rust will "replace" C any time soon, just like C hasn't really "replaced" FORTRAN and COBOL in a lot of places, but it will continue to grow as a systems-programming language, especially what with the Linux kernel starting to greenlight Rust components. Regardless, I personally see future value in Rust and so I nabbed the book and am slowly learning it. Hopefully it isn't time wasted and we start seeing more Rust-native interfaces out there. One of the main things holding me back is a lack of native OpenGL interfacing. There are binding layers of course, but that's just another stinky layer of code I don't control doing things I may or may not agree with. As for writing my own bindings, I could do that...or I could just write in C and be done with it :P

Who knows, as time goes on though, Rust may verge more and more into that territory of "best of both worlds" with familiar OOP constructs for modern programmers and​ similar performance to C where it counts. If nothing else, I can credit Rust as the first new language I've actually bought the book for in a long, long time.

- Matt G.
------- Original Message -------
On Monday, January 30th, 2023 at 10:47 AM, Andy Kosela <akosela@andykosela.com> wrote:

> On Monday, January 30, 2023, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I did not want to disrupt the FD 2 discussion, but I could not really let this comment go unanswered:
>>
>> "Smells like C++ to me. Rust in essence is a re-implementation of C++ not C. It tries to pack as much features as it possibly can. "
>>
>> It's hard for me to see how you can say this if you have done any work in Rust and C++.
>>
>> But, short form: Rust is not C++. Full stop.
>>
>> I did not feel that comment should go unanswered, lest people believe it.
>
> Well, I will stand by my opinion, but perhaps you misread what I meant. I meant that as a whole Rust resembles more C++ than C. Technically it might lie in between C and C++, but the amount of "features" certainly bring it closer to C++. While it might be easier to write safer code in Rust than in C++, I still think that its "weird" syntax and feature bloat make me dislike it the way I dislike C++.
>
> Just my .02. YMMV.
>
> --Andy

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