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0 pointsAnimalMuppet4y ago0 comments

> Expecting a language be better "enough" is an unrealistic one, you will be waiting forever.

Disagree. I think the "market" (the set of programmers) defines "enough". When a language is enough better (in some area, doesn't have to be all areas) you see widespread adoption.

C was enough better than PL/I, ALGOL, and assembly. Java was enough better than C++. (Why? Garbage collection, and the huge standard library.)

So far, Rust is not enough better than C++.

Now, I know this is kind of circular. I'm saying that a language is "enough" better if it wins in the market, and I'm saying that a language wins in the market if it's enough better. But I have some trust in programmers, that they are not just sheep. If a language is better than other languages in a way that matters to actual working programmers, a fair number of them will use it.

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jbergens4y ago

I neither a c++ programmer nor a rust one but I read things about programming. My take is that rust is near the breaking point where it becomes so commonly used that more teams and organizations will just start to use it.

The risk of switching for at least parts or a code base will seem low and then it probably looks better enough.

Of course some organizations and code bases are harder to change for some reason or reasons but many will probably start the conversion in the next 5 years. Unless rust just stops growing or something truly better comes along. I personally don't expect something much better soon and I think rust will continue to grow in usage.

pron4y ago

> My take is that rust is near the breaking point where it becomes so commonly used that more teams and organizations will just start to use it.

You would have said the same thing about PHP or Ruby (or even that they're past their breaking point), and yet companies that are stuck with either one today aren't too happy about it. The problem is that these days, there are a lot of people who can switch languages without much risk. They switch to X, and tomorrow they switch to Y. While it's very good to have low-risk early adopters, having so many of them can really give a false impression about long-term risk. At some point, you need to see many "long-term committers" making a switch.

Some people ask, but how can you have many long-term committers if these risk-averse people also look around for others like them? The answer is that usually this isn't the main factor. If some technology indeed makes a big bottom-line impact, there's a competitive risk in not adopting it (because your competitors will and then beat you in the market), which is why big-benefit technologies spread quickly.

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