Traits now support async fn and -> impl Trait (with some limitations), the compiler got faster, version = in Cargo.toml is now optional, and many small functions have been stabilized!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Sorry to ask, is Rust derived from another language? I know some c++, would that benefit me if I want to learn Rust?
What is powerful about Rust in comparison to other languages?

[–] xav 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I find it's a mix between ML languages and C++, and knowing one of them would help yes. If you're tired if chasing a wild pointer because of a subtle use-after-free in a multithreaded monster under gdb, you'll love #rust.

[–] tatterdemalion 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Honestly the only things that are similar to C++ are small amounts of C-like syntax, RAII, smart pointers, and iterators. And even so, Rust improves those features a lot. The list of things that Rust rejects from C++ is much larger; Rust does not have:

new and delete (perhaps discouraged in modern C++)
function overloading
inheritance (replaced by composition or traits)
friend classes (replaced by modules)
exceptions (replaced by Result values)
6 different kinds of first-class constructors (hallelujah)
templates (replaced by constrained parametric polymorphism)
variable mutability by default

Rust does OOP very differently and leans harder into functional paradigms.

[–] xav 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

You could argue that C++'s new is Rust's Box::new, and delete is replaced by RAII. Same concepts but way better ergonomy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

box::new is pretty directly analogous to std::make_unique (factory for unique_ptr), in general rust’s heap allocating types map to c++’s smart pointer types, which are basically universally recommended over raw new/delete. So another column where rust just gives you the one best C++ feature where it still has 4 supported versions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

A lot of Rust concepts were also influenced by Haskell even though Rust uses different terms for them.

[–] 5C5C5C 3 points 11 months ago

The way I often describe it is "Rust makes functional programming feel as intuitive as object oriented programming".

Pedantically, Rust does offer a subset of object oriented programming paradigms so one could argue that it counts as an object oriented language, but the design patterns that work the best with the language are all coming from functional programming, all without feeling too alien to someone coming from a strictly object oriented background (.. which was my own path into Rust).

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