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Comment by acp2020 | Hacker News Reader

acp2020

Why every time I read about Rust the title is in form "xyz written in Rust"?

For example Unreal engine is a game engine. Not "a game engine written in C++".

When I go to a store and buy Milk the carton doesn't say "Milk made by Cows". When I go to buy Milk/Milk-substitutes from other sources they'll be called "Almond Milk", "Goat Milk", etc.

It seems like you stop saying "made by Cows" when it's not surprising that the Milk you'd be buying is from cows.

Because the default is generally C++?

Since when it's been the most interesting thing about the software in which language it's been written in?

I mean sure sometimes it is but show me a Rust software that didn't advertise itself being written in Rust.

There are a lot of “X in C++” posts here on HN as well. I don’t think it is really new or specific to rust.

I also dislike the emphasise on the programming language, but many people seem to find it important.

Generally it's interesting when almost all of that type of software isn't written in the advertised language.

Ripgrep?

> Since when it's been the most interesting thing about the software in which language it's been written in?

Presumably because I'm going to be writing the same language when I interface with it. Rust can export to a C API but if I'm using Rust myself the API is going to be better.

It's to get adoption by that particular group that uses X and has to deal with the issues of that domain and the default language they all use ... It's a way of saying: you could be doing all your _real_ development in Rust

I write software in Rust, so to me it is relevant to learn about new libraries and frameworks that are written in Rust.

There are enough existing and new game engines and frameworks that if the title was simply “Bevy: A Game Engine”, then I might not have bothered to clicked on it only to find that it was written in C++ or Lua or Python or what have you. I use other languages too, mind you, it’s not that – it’s just that aside from Unreal, Unity and Godot, the only other game engine or framework that I am interested in knowing about at the moment is one that is written either in Swift or in Rust.

Conversely, stating it upfront also allows anyone that does not want to write in Rust to avoid this particular game engine at the moment.

I see only benefits of stating it.

It's interesting if it's truly unexpected. For example, there's a game that's been in development called Black Annex that's written in QB64 which looks quite complicated for having been written in a BASIC variant. But for Rust, which is commonly advertised as a C/C++ replacement, it seems unnecessary. I think that developers include that information because they don't feel that Rust's traction isn't being given enough recognition.

The first thing I look for in a game engine is what language it's written in. The second thing I look for is what language(s) it lets the user write games in.

In this case, the thing we're talking about is a library that uses Rust data types and interfaces.

It might be possible to create language bindings for C or C++ (or whatever language you want to use), but the docs on the website seem specifically targeted to Rust users. So for now, the only people likely to be interested in using this are Rust developers (though people coming from other languages might find the general design interesting).

OP here: without being clickbaity, the idea was to choose a title that gave people some idea of why they might want to read about it. And titles can’t be that long. I’m told Bevy does really interesting things with traits, for instance, but even that is too long for a title.

I think the people rationalizing are wrong. You're right that you see a lot of posts with "X is a Foo written in Rust!".

A few years ago I saw a bunch about Go, too. That seems to have died down.

But I think the real reason is that people are excited to use Rust for "real stuff". And a lot of Rust fans don't get to use Rust at $dayJob or whatever. There's also a bit of naysayer criticism that it isn't a practical language, etc.

So, no, it doesn't really matter that something is written in Rust. It's just Rust fans being hyped up about it. It might be a little annoying, but replies like yours aren't really any better, honestly.

Because it implies that it is extendable/scriptable in that language.

Unity and Unreal, for example, are not scriptable in Rust. Anyone interested in writing games in Rust would surely be more interested in an engine that supports it.

I think it's actually pretty common that when a fairly typical thing is written in a newer/modern/less common language, it's often stated as "X written in <new language>"

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