Rust's popularity despite the challenges of navigating the borrow checker has me rethinking what turns people away from Haskell. Specifically, the types are often blamed, but I don't think that's a major factor.
44
20
211
Conversation
Replying to
As somebody who likes Haskell but uses Rust mainly, I put backwards compatibility (of the language and base), the way library versioning is handled (multiple versions of a dependency don't break the build), as some big reasons I avoid using it.
I think Rust has done a great job with documentation and error reporting too, which are also really important when beginners are starting out. And the way that experimental language features can only be used on nightly, requiring stabilization for general use.
1
8
The rust book is a triumph! I'm cautiously enthusiastic about the nightly system. It's great that it lets extensions fade away without hitting stable, but it can go wrong if, over time, too many things depend on nightly features.
1
1
Show replies
Replying to
You avoid Rust for how it handles library versioning? I'm maintaining a strict lack of opinion on that since Rust is so much newer that it hasn't yet encountered all the library versioning challenges older languages have.
1
Oh, I mean I use Rust because of its approach. I find it incredibly frustrating the way Cabal and OPAM require single versions of libraries in a build tree. Allowing duplicates does have issues, but I find those more tolerable. 😅
1
1
Show replies