Ask HN: Going All-In on Rust

I worked fulltime in Python (Deep Learning and web services for around 10 years) and used Go for some projects in past. I recently introduced Rust as a language for some server side logic and desktop app. Some observations: 1. Rust coding takes time. Something you would write in an hour in Python would take a day in Rust. 2. Rust code is almost always faster. 3. Rust almost will never cause an exception in production if you are not just doing unwraps and expects everywhere. This sometimes feels a lot of work while coding. In python, I almost always end up solving some production exceptions despite of writing tests. Not a fault with Python btw, you could always write better tests. 4. Writing Python is more enjoyable. However, you know you will never be able to write stuff in Python that you can in Rust. I think of Rust as a good compromise for a Python programmer to write low level code without learning C++. Being productive in C++ will take years, being productive in Rust takes a few months. Rust is like C++ but written with high level language features. 5. There are other fast languages which would be better for a Python developer like Nim, but they have no library ecosystem. Rust has almost got a good library for everything I need it for (just like Python).

Why make the transition so dramatic? Write one project in Rust, see how it feels. How much did you learn, from which challenges? Complete a competition with your solution in Rust. How was your performance, what benefits did the language offer in your solution? I think if you tackle those two things you can answer your question about the rest of your work better than any HN comment.

What kind of competitive coding ? If it's the kind where the first to code a working solution to a relatively small problem wins I don't think I would choose Rust for that.

Read the whole book, cover yo cover. That’s about it.

I adopted rust a while back and have since ported basically everything to it, even at work. It’s my new best friend, for sure.

The best advice is just to keep going.

I have a feeling writing something in Rust takes whole day, while writing same code in Python is less than 1 hour.

Keep in mind reasons why you want to move away from Java/Python.

Perhaps there is a different language that can fit the bill.

Work. You want to check you can be employed with it if you go all-in.

if you want to learn low level programming learn C and C++