Ask HN: How productive are you in Rust? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How productive are you in Rust?

10 pointsdrngxn4 comments

When I program in Python I feel like I can _fly_. No Google, no Stackoverflow. I seem to have memorized the standard library APIs that I need to the point where I can stand up an app in a few hours (or a day).

However, when I program in Rust (I'd say I'm intermediate) I find myself _constantly_ having to Google things, _constantly_ having the use Stackoverflow. My productivity slows to a crawl. Don't get me wrong, I learn a _ton_ but still, makes me feel bad that I can't go at 50% of my Python pace.

How productive are you in Rust?

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I feel more productive TBH, imagine writing a service in Rust vs Python, Rust has better package manager, i don't need to run +400 MB Dockerfile locally because of Python's C and OS dependencies, writing tests with Rust is pure joy, Rust is better in terms of maintainability thanks to strong type-checking.

Well yeah, i still feel like i need to learn a lot of things when i'm writing Rust, but the paradigms and things that Rust forces me to use makes me a better developer overall IMO.

I'm probably 2-3x more productive in Rust than in Python and I would consider myself equally proficient in both (Python was my main language for 2-3 years). Writing code is slower in Rust, but the type system and borrow checker tend to save me so much time down the road by immediately catching bugs that I probably would've needed to debug with print statements or notebooks in Python.

While I generally understand the borrow checker and lifetime. It proves challenging based on the kind of programs I write or while looking at source of any crate that I use.

I knew Rust has very steep learning curve, but I try to overcome that urge to quit.

I'm not going to say that I'm productive, as I'm at the learning phase.

If I really wanted to write something in a shor time, like in an afternoon, Python is always my goto.

I'm not productive at all but I don't care, I'm not trying to be very productive.

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