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Comment by hvasilev | Hacker News Reader

Reality is not on the side of this language. 11 year old, has a very low adoption with virtually no jobs associated. (https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/)

On the other hand if you search for "Rust" in the latest "Who wants to be hired?" thread, you will see it is quite popular with unemployed people.

The reality is that the language has a lot of friction, the ergonomics are bad, the syntax is heavy and some poor decision making has been made there for a systems-level programming language.

There are a lot of ideological traps in this industry and many people that fall for them. Why people are interested in ideologies and cults is beyond me.

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I do Rust (and C, and C++, and Python) programming professionally, at a company that isn't famous for Rust engineering. I'm happy to answer questions about my supposedly nonexistent job :-)

On the more famous side: Amazon, Cloudflare, and Microsoft all have teams writing in Rust. I'm sure there are plenty of HNers from each who can talk about that work, sensitivity permitting.

Add Docker and Google to that.

* Dropbox, I meant to say dropbox.

I work with Rust as well but be realistic. There is very few jobs for this language compared to others.

I don't think your comment adds anything other than a "I work with Rust :-)" humblebrag

I'm proud of the work I do. But the language itself wasn't intended to be a humblebrag.

As far as "very few jobs" goes: sure, it's less than other languages. That comes with any new technology. But it varies heavily by discipline. The work my company does (program analysis and cryptographic research) already has a thriving Rust ecosystem, and demand for engineers is currently above demand for Rust jobs. My understanding is that things are similar in the network engineering space, at least at the larger companies.

there are virtually no jobs for it. You have a bigger chance of finding a job as a COBOL developer.

I don't know what to tell you: we hired quite a few people this year to do Rust (both programming in it and auditing Rust codebases). And we're a small company.

I assume that it will continue to be easy to find a job as a COBOL programmer for a very, very long time. But what kind of metric is that?

COBOL has an excellent job market. You picked a strange point of comparison.

This is trolling, surely. If so, mission accomplished.

Every one of the MAGMA tech companies (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon) is adopting Rust in significant ways. That is extraordinary; and those companies are only the tip of the iceberg, and what is publicly known lags reality by 6-12 months at least.

Rust won't ever be as widely used as Java or COBOL, but clearly it is already having a huge impact on how infrastructure is built.

I am not a rust fan, but `ever` is a long time, and if operating systems are re-written in rust (which is preferable by far than writing them in C), that is going to be a lot of very widely used code.

> MAGMA

why does Facebook become Meta but Google hasn't become Alphabet?

The collective has decided that MAAMA is a worse acronym, and I agree.

The reason that Netflix has been booted is because (a) it's not really a tech company and (b) Microsoft's stock has started to grow a lot since Nadella became CEO.

Some typos in 'Facebook'.

Why would you back your argument related to jobs up with Tiobe which is not a measure of job listing commonality. Hell “assembly language” is listed above PHP in that list, and I can confidently say there are a lot more opportunities for PHP devs that for people working in some assembly.

Your off topic rant on an article simply discussing speed improvements on a compiler seems significantly more ideologically driven than most comments in here.

Heck, Visual Basic is rank higher than JavaScript is more than enough to understand the value of that Tiobe list.

Despite its bashing around here, plenty of MS shops do keep using VB, even for new projects.

As does everybody working at a slightly deeper level with Excel and that alone probably puts it near the top of PL usage.

As I worked on a couple of projects in life sciences, the migration path to VB was those users that wanted to grow beyond VBA so they would eventually adopt VB + WinForms for data processing, they didn't even care for R or Python, Excel and Tableau were they main tools.

Haha, even Fortran has seen serious growth in the last year apparently.

The hvasilev's comment got flagged and I could not reply to it anymore, so I'll reply here (sorry) and copy-paste the hvasilev's comment verbatim below, for the sake of commenting on it's claims:

---

Reality is not on the side of this language. 11 year old, has a very low adoption with virtually no jobs associated. (https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/)

On the other hand if you search for "Rust" in the latest "Who wants to be hired?" thread, you will see it is quite popular with unemployed people.

The reality is that the language has a lot of friction, the ergonomics are bad, the syntax is heavy and some poor decision making has been made there for a systems-level programming language.

There are a lot of ideological traps in this industry and many people that fall for them. Why people are interested in ideologies and cults is beyond me.

[ A screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/tgAETjh ]

---

<rant>

Now my comments on the issues mentioned in the hvasilev's comment.

> Reality is not on the side of this language. 11 year old, has a very low adoption with virtually no jobs associated. (https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/)

Tiobe index is shit. The most flattering thing I've read about it states that it (poorly) depicts quantity of educational materials available online for particular programming language. Unfortunate naming of programming languages after letters of alphabet, symbols (++, #) and real-life stuff (like islands) doesn't help this rating either.

That said, Rust isn't that popular and isn't growing much according to other better language ratings:

1. https://tjpalmer.github.io/languish/

A Github-based rating created by the author of Context Free YouTube channel. For 2021Q3, Rust is on 18th place with Mean Score of 0.82% (up 0.01% from 2021Q2).

2. https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2021/3

A Github-based rating. For 2021Q3, Rust has 0.64% of Pull Requests, 0.30% of Pushes, 1.29% of Stars and 0.65% of Issues. Growth dynamic is quite flat.

3. https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2021/08/05/language-rankings-6-2...

Latest RedMonk language rating, dated June 2021. Rust is on 19th place with 0 growth.

---

About jobs comparison.

Indeed.com for California.

Rust: 527 jobs (with some unrelated stuff mixed in)

https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=rust%20developer&l=California

JavaScript: 16,792 jobs (31.8x)

https://www.indeed.com/q-Javascript-l-California-jobs.html

Java: 12,418 jobs (23.5x)

https://www.indeed.com/q-Java-Developer-l-California-jobs.ht...

C++: 4,172 jobs (7.8x)

https://www.indeed.com/q-C++-Developer-l-California-jobs.htm...

Indeed.com for New York.

Rust: 85 jobs

https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=rust%20developer&l=New%20York%...

Java: 4,815 jobs

https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=java%20developer&l=New%20York%...

Javascript: 4,037 jobs

https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=javascript%20developer&l=New%2...

C++: 1,126 jobs

https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=C%2B%2B%20Developer&l=New%20Yo...

glassdoor.com without location set.

Rust: 492 jobs

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/rust-developer-jobs-SRCH_KO0,1...

Java: 45005 jobs (91x)

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/java-jobs-SRCH_KO0,4.htm

Javasript: 30952 jobs (62.9x)

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/java-script-developer-jobs-SRC...

C (with unrelated stuff): 9594 jobs (19.5x)

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/c-developer-jobs-SRCH_KO0,11.h...

Go(lang): 1406 jobs (2.85x)

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/golang-developer-jobs-SRCH_KO0...

Judge for yourself if a few hundred jobs in places like CA and NY count as "virtually no jobs".

For comparison, in Ukraine (population 35-41 millions) there is 6 Rust jobs:

https://jobs.dou.ua/vacancies/?search=Rust

... 190 C++ jobs:

https://jobs.dou.ua/vacancies/?search=C%2B%2B

... and 676 Java jobs:

https://jobs.dou.ua/vacancies/?search=Java

... listed on the largest Ukrainian programming site.

---

> The reality is that the language has a lot of friction, the ergonomics are bad, the syntax is heavy and some poor decision making has been made there for a systems-level programming language.

Well, this is matter of taste, largely. But I have a few issues with Rust syntax too (IMHO):

1. F--king single quotes. Eww, really?! IIRC, a tilde (~) character was used for lifetimes until some Europeans (?) complained that their keyboards have no tilde. I wonder, how they programmed in C++ all that time? For years, if I met online a piece of code that was highlighted as a comments mishmash I knew exactly in what language it was. Ugly as f--k.

2. Closures using pipes (|). With no arguments they look like OR operator (||). Distracting.

3. Using angle brackets for generics.

4. Double colons (::) as "path qualifier" produce too much visual noise. Java likes long pathes too and uses dot (.) as separator just fine.

5. What with this arrows (->) before return types? Seems unnecessary. Couldn't return types be purely positional as in Go?

I don't use Rust so it's mostly "glimpses from the outside".

Speaking of friction. This reminded me of a video by Jonathan Blow (creator of Braid and The Witness games and Jai programming language). The video is worth watching whole but piece about friction in gamedev starts approximately at 49:23.

"Rant: Entity systems and the Rust borrow checker ... or something."

by Jonathan Blow

Sep 14, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1K66dMhWk&t=2962s

As for poor decision making, it was pretty poor decision to include an npm knock off into the language. I'm speaking of crates.io repository. For some time it has a squatting problem that isn't fixed yet:

https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/9aaanw/cargo_crate_na...

3 year old thread, the squatter is still there holding 104 packages. At least npm has namespaces.

I wonder, if cargo will turn into malware-ridden micro-dependency hell too?

---

> There are a lot of ideological traps in this industry and many people that fall for them. Why people are interested in ideologies and cults is beyond me.

"MongoDB is web scale" video nicely illustrates "ideological traps" and cult-like behaviors in "this industry".

http://www.mongodb-is-web-scale.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs

And what else illustrates cult-like behaviors? Flagging an innocent comment you don't agree with. What was in the hvasilev's comment that warranted its removal? In my opinion, nothing. It contained no insults, no personal attacks, and was more or less factually correct. Rust is relatively unpopular, complex, ideological, syntactically-heavy language with relatively few job offerings, i.e. pretty much what the hvasilev's comment said.

Complaining about the comment being "off topic" is somewhat funny given Rusters' penchant for inserting their language into discussions about other programming languages (especially C, C++ and Go).

</rant>

> What with this arrows (->) before return types? Seems unnecessary. Couldn't return types be purely positional as in Go?

I guess you could say `->` is too verbose and you can omit it in other languages. Rust has a complex type system and there can be confusing code when you omit `->`.

1. Closure Return Types.

You can define a closure with an explicit return type:

``` let my_closure = |i: u32| -> u64 { i as u64 }; ```

Now how do you omit the arrow here? How do you know `u64` is the return type and not constructing a struct?

2. Parsing stuff

It becomes impossible to parse none-delimited types. Is `fn() fn()` two different types or a function pointer returning a function pointer?

3. Readability

I mean, tokens can be read out loud and omitting it stops making sense.

`fn foo(bar: i32) -> f32` can be read as a "function named 'foo' that takes an argument named bar with type i32 and returns f32". The word returns directly corresponds to the `->` token.

Rust also has the `!` (read: never) type. Poorly formatted code when `->` is omitted is very confusing: `fn a()!` when compared to `fn a()->!`, or just one character generic types: `fn a<T>()T` compared to `fn a<T>()->T`.

Thank you for clarification.

Seems like arrow (->) is the best choice for Rust, given arrow's visual distinctiveness and search-ability.

> Complaining about the comment being "off topic" is somewhat funny given Rusters' penchant for inserting their language into discussions about other programming languages (especially C, C++ and Go).

The childlike “well they do it too” argument is almost the perfect example of how the anti-rust crowd is becoming even more obnoxious than the infamous Rust evangelism strike squad.

For the record , I’ve never written a line of rust in my life and am not particularly invented in its success or failure. And no, I didn’t flag GP.

why do you think i'm backing my argument to jobs with Tiobe?

how is negating an ideology ideological?

You’re not negating anything but a strawman here. You commented too level on an article on someone simply talking about how a compiler whining about something unrelated to the article.

If you were responding to some rust fanatic or if the article was some sort of rewrite in rust call, you may have a point, but it’s nothing but some developer interested in improvements in the compiler. God forbid anyone work on anything other than some mainstream technology.

> why do you think i'm backing my argument to jobs with Tiobe?

You may not be, I assume because it immediately followed the statement about jobs in parentheses.

Try https://indeed.com or http://www.modulecounts.com instead of Tiobe which is one of the worst metrics. The Rust community's module output is well ahead of both Ruby and Go so I'd say it's fairly mainstream.

The Go measurement on that website is based on a discontinued package manager and seems to no longer be updating.

>11 year old

Rust 1.0 was in May 2015, it's only 6.5 years old, not 11 years.

The equivalent comparison would be where Go was in 2015, and I don't think Rust is doing poorly compared to that benchmark.

Anyway, Rust is seriously being considered for inclusion in the Linux kernel. I'd hardly call that a failed language.

Rust is 11 years old, Go is 12 years old.

Graydon Hoare began working on the language that would become Rust in 2006. Rob Pike began working on the language that would become Go in 1995. Neither of these are useful dates because the languages that were eventually produced were drastically different at their inception compared to where they eventually ended up.

For the purpose of maturity, the point in time by which to begin measuring the age of a language is the first point at which a stable release appears for general availability. Go is 9 years old, and Rust is 6.

I think it would behoove you to explain how you're coming up with that number, given that the person you're replying to has pointed out exactly when Rust 1.0 was released.

If we're going by design inception dates, Go goes back to 2007 or earlier.

public announcements.

This is a weird metric to use, given that Rust was incubated at an open source company (Mozilla) while Go was developed for years as part of a private project. Put another way: Rust's development was much more public than Go's was; why should that be held against it?

You're feeding a troll that's managed to derail the point/conversation with an incoherent offtopic comment... I really doubt they care what you or anyone has to say to them (which is evident from their replies). Their comments/replies give you just enough material to pull you in, and then they grapple you to their level. It doesn't even have to be intentional/conscious on their part, but they're definitely doing it.

Not necessarily the troll's motivation, but: there's also a lot of "Rust envy"[1] going around from some people (mostly disgruntled C++ devs who feel threatened by it) who'll baselesly say anything and misrepresent something to prove their point. How does it never cross their mind that they're on the wrong side of things if they have to grasp for lies to prove their points?

[1]: I came up with the term just now, but I'm not sure "envy" is the right word; maybe "petty spite" is a better term.

I'm back-and-forth on whether they're actually a troll. In the best case, they're a non-L1 English speaker who's upset but isn't making particularly coherent points. But things are coming to a close anyways.

I wasn't sure if it's a language issue at first myself (I'm still not completely sure), but based on their replies it seems like it's just a fruitless smear quest because they don't like something about Rust.

Rust was announced in 2010. Many sources state it is 11 years old.

The kernel is a crucible. I'm curious to see if it's system facilities are adequate and operate with reasonable costs in that context. We'll have to see, but I am still suspicious of what often comes across as hype.

Uh dude, might want to do a bit of research first. Rust is getting increasingly popular and is close to being an official language for wiring Linux kernel drivers. If that doesn’t count as having made it, I’m not sure what else will.

Literally provided a link with its popularity.

Why not a link to which languages programmers like the most[1]? It's our field, after all.

[1]: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-most-...

Mildly saddened at the “dreaded” percentage on Erlang.

At least you're beating Ruby! I guess programmers don't always have the best tastes, at least according to my Extremely Objective Opinions.

elixir is much nicer in my experience. anything you want to do in erland, you can do in elixiir + you get a lisp like macro system

you are misunderstanding what this data shows.

Am I missing something that isn't in the actual leader paragraph?

> For the sixth-year, Rust is the most loved language, while Python is the most wanted language for its fifth-year.

Really it baffles me that anyone bothers learning anything but SAP. ;)

In my experience Rust has become the go-to language for applied cryptography and is becoming increasingly popular for embedded/iot development. We're currently hiring for both and experience a scarcity of developers.

This had absolutely nothing to do with the article. Why did you decide to spend your time bashing something you don't use unprompted?

> There are a lot of ideological traps in this industry and many people that fall for them. Why people are interested in ideologies and cults is beyond me.

Most people who make remarks like that are not nearly as exceptional as they think they are. https://xkcd.com/610/

But just to give the actual answer, it’s probably that:

* Things are not okay. Read any CVE list if you wish to deny it.

* It’s not getting better. In fact, it’s getting worse, because software is getting more complex.

* Making software less complex is a fool’s errand. The whole point of software is that it can be more easily changed than hardware, so just not changing it at all is missing the point. Yet removing features that have been put out there is disruptive, and often selfish, egotistical, and demonstrating a poor organizational structure (I’m looking at you, Google, and your dozens of chat apps). As such, we can expect successful software to monotonically increase in complexity forever.

Do you have a response that isn’t either either: something that a cynic could dismiss as a cult, some sort of “your needs don’t matter” dismissal of features that a lot of people like, or a bleak declaration that the whole world sucks and that’s just the way it is?

I believe that derivatives of this language might be interesting. However we do have to point out what is wrong with it, so it can be fixed in the derivative.

Feel free to do that then, it might make for a more compelling and less troll-y comment thread.

Reality is that Linux is gradually moving toward making modules in Rust. So check your sources, they appear to have nothing to do with actual reality.

Meanwhile on AOSP they are already a reality.

https://source.android.com/setup/build/rust/building-rust-mo...

Python, currently sitting at #1 on the index, was 11 years old in 2002, for comparison.

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