From: Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Date: Wed, 15 May 2019 15:01:26 +0000 (+0100)
Subject: wip
X-Git-Url: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~ijackson/git?a=commitdiff_plain;h=64dbb53cd58486115ab5838f44297a0e31074423;p=talk-2019-ghm-rust.git

wip
---

diff --git a/talk.txt b/talk.txt
index 20eb942..fd2636b 100644
--- a/talk.txt
+++ b/talk.txt
@@ -134,3 +134,108 @@ are not known to the Rust compiler so you must check them yourself.)
 Built on top of that are machineries for glueing Rust to, for example,
 Python.
 
+D======================================================================D
+
+I also want to talk a bit about the attitudes and values of the Rust
+project.  (I should say that this is an outsider's point of view.)
+
+[ slide with quotes from C vs Rust ]
+
+The most impressive thing, for me, is that the Rust community does not
+blame Rust programmers for the bugs in Rust programs.  Rather, they
+look for opportunities to help the programmer avoid bugs.  There is a
+clear design ethos, to make APIs where the default and easy option
+does the right thing, and to avoid beartraps.
+
+In particular, the comparison with C is very striking.  The C
+community have even resorted to writing compilers which ferociously
+analyse your program for violations of C's bizarre and
+nigh-incomprehensible rules, and then use those rule breaches as
+excuses to miscompile your program.
+
+Convenience is not regarded as the enemy of correctness, but its ally.
+
+[ slide with interface stability ]
+
+The Rust project is quite careful about language and library
+stability.  They make a clear distinction between stable and unstable
+features, and try quite hard to avoid backward-incompatible changes to
+anything which has been declared as stable.
+
+[ process and code of conduct ]
+
+There's a mature process for evaluating and deciding on new features,
+and a modern Code of Conduct.
+
+E======================================================================E
+
+Of course nothing is perfect.  I'm very critical by nature, so I often
+find things to gripe about.
+
+The most obvious difficulty with Rust, if you read the internet, is
+some's feeling they are constantly fighting the borrow checker.
+Personally I have not found this to be a problem at all.  I think it
+may depend on how much experience of informal object ownership systems
+you have - in particular, how much C and C++ you've done.
+
+Of course having something like the borrow checker is the price Rust
+pays for its novel memory management strategy, and it is that novel
+strategy that makes for the high performance of Rust programs.
+
+There is one annoyance that occurs when trying to design and implement
+complex APIs.  It is not straightforward to define an object type one
+of whose members is (or contains) a reference to another member.
+Luckily this doesn't come up very often, and it is still possible to
+hide the issue from the API's consumer.  The awkwardness is tolerable.
+
+Rust does have macros.  In fact it has two ways to define macros (one
+built on top of the other).  The more sophisticated macro system is
+very capable and has been used to really impressive effect.  But it's
+hard to use casually; and the simpler macro definition facility is
+simultaneously too complicated and underpowered.  So casual macro use
+is slightly awkward.
+
+But the worst problem is cargo.  Cargo is Rust's language-specific
+package manager and build tool.  It is really quite annoying.
+
+The worst problem is that like all modern tools of this kind, its main
+purpose is to automatically download stuff from the internet and run
+it.  Apparently this is what is expected by the youth of today.  It
+can be hit hard enough to stop it doing this, but you still run into
+the difficulty that if you use one library from the repository, you
+end up having to trust much more widely than ideal.  And at least
+Rust's repository contains larger libraries than, say node.js's, so
+the number of people you're trusting is much lower.
+
+Also, as a build tool, cargo can be very inflexible.  Despite an
+official policy that cargo should be suitable for running inside
+another build systme, requests to be able to do `weird stuff' seem
+usually to result in excuses why the thing you want to do is a bad
+idea, rather than useful increases in flexibility.  (And the excuses
+are usually based on misunderstandings.)  I guess if your project ends
+up containing piece of opinionated curl-pipe-bash-ware, you should
+expect a culture which produces these kind of problems.
+
+F======================================================================~
+
+Despite these difficulties, and of course a fair few minor
+irritations, I have found programming in Rust to be both fun and very
+productive.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+not
+very good either.
+
+
+
+Unlike many other modern programming language ecosystems, the Rust
+project and its community have a welcoming, cautious and mature feel.
+
+The