I am NOT making a Rust replacement, but — if you could fix one* thing about Rust syntax/semantics/etc.
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I am NOT making a Rust replacement, but — if you could fix one* thing about Rust syntax/semantics/etc. what would you fix?
(*one per reply, multiple replies per household are allowed)
@fasterthanlime As someone who learnt #Rust but didn’t stick with it, get rid of * / & syntax and use in / out / inout keywords on the parameter instead. It’s a noob thing but #C’s pointer syntax has always struck me as needlessly confusing and requiring too much micro-management through a code base. Rust was too much up-front architecting and not enough proving an idea works and cleaning up afterwards for me
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@arichtman @fasterthanlime It's not quite the same thing because the languages approach traits and the problems solved by traits differently, but Scala handles this by (massive handwave over the details) giving the implementations a name, which has to be imported by the code which uses it. That way there doesn't need to be One True Implementation which limits where it can be defined. The flip side is that it needs to be imported by all library users and isn't automatically available, but since Scala code tends to wildcard-import from libraries, this is not particularly onerous.
@arichtman @fasterthanlime In my own hypothetical Rust replacement which I don't expect to write any time soon, I would definitely be stealing quite hard from Scala. Other things: square brackets for trait parameters so we don't get weird parses from angle brackets and generally improving ergonomics, it basically having stable
fn_traitsso a collection or other container type can just be called directly to perform a lookup without the noise of.getor whatever, implicit parameters so some common parameter (e.g. a database handle) can bubble through the call stack without explicitly adding it to every function call, and perhaps its dependent functions/methods. But those are another three things… -
@yosh @poliorcetics @cyberia @fasterthanlime sometimes an anonymous struct with named fields would be nice, like for a one-off return type. but i usually eat the verbosity and make it a named struct, so it’s not where i’d spend language complexity budget first
@simon @yosh @poliorcetics @fasterthanlime yeah, often I find that if I'm returning multiple values from a function, either the thing returned is a useful grouping elsewhere in the program and therefore deserves a name, or the function is overburdened and can be split up
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@simon @yosh @poliorcetics @fasterthanlime yeah, often I find that if I'm returning multiple values from a function, either the thing returned is a useful grouping elsewhere in the program and therefore deserves a name, or the function is overburdened and can be split up
@cyberia @simon @yosh @poliorcetics something something stockholm syndrome (with all due respect)
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@cyberia @simon @yosh @poliorcetics something something stockholm syndrome (with all due respect)
@fasterthanlime @simon @yosh @poliorcetics ha, I think it's a pretty useful prompt that the code is getting messy and could be refactored, but sure
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@fasterthanlime I have a dang *list*, but let's start with the pettiest one:
The value of { a(); b(); } should be whatever b returns, not ().
If you want to throw away the value returned by b you should have to write { a(); b(); (); }.
Leaving off the semicolon on the last expression in a block should be a *syntax error*, except when you wouldn't have to put a semicolon after that expression if it wasn't the last expression in the block.
@zwol @fasterthanlime That one is also on my list!
Do you have your list somewhere?
My list (syntax-only) is https://soc.me/languages/design-mistakes-in-rust. -
@fasterthanlime @simon @yosh @poliorcetics ha, I think it's a pretty useful prompt that the code is getting messy and could be refactored, but sure
@cyberia @simon @yosh @poliorcetics Right, I don't mean that as like an insult saying you're incapable of imagining things outside of the tools you're currently allowed to use. I'm just saying that I've caught myself coming up with excuses for the limitations of the language I use because I know those limitations are not going to be lifted... and therefore, it's easier to imagine that they make sense than to imagine that I'm suffering for no good reason is the long version of what I was trying to say.
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@cyberia @simon @yosh @poliorcetics Right, I don't mean that as like an insult saying you're incapable of imagining things outside of the tools you're currently allowed to use. I'm just saying that I've caught myself coming up with excuses for the limitations of the language I use because I know those limitations are not going to be lifted... and therefore, it's easier to imagine that they make sense than to imagine that I'm suffering for no good reason is the long version of what I was trying to say.
@fasterthanlime @cyberia @simon @poliorcetics
Hear hear! We all deserve good things! Things can be better!
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@cyberia @simon @yosh @poliorcetics Right, I don't mean that as like an insult saying you're incapable of imagining things outside of the tools you're currently allowed to use. I'm just saying that I've caught myself coming up with excuses for the limitations of the language I use because I know those limitations are not going to be lifted... and therefore, it's easier to imagine that they make sense than to imagine that I'm suffering for no good reason is the long version of what I was trying to say.
@fasterthanlime @simon @yosh @poliorcetics Sure - but this is a pattern I use in TypeScript as well which allows anonymous structs as function returns. In this case the restriction in Rust made me a better TS engineer, so it goes both ways. I would definitely agree with you in other contexts (like passing structs as parameters in C being messy meaning that people think it's an undesirable thing in general)
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I think I may have accidentally come up with a drinking game
If someone mentions function coloring, you have to finish your glass
@fasterthanlime
Do I have to finish sync or async? -
@fasterthanlime When I borrow `self` mutably, it ends up locking down the entire self from immutable borrows, but really I just want certain fields to be locked down. Some fields will never be mutably borrowed and so I should allow immutable borrows to self that only access those fields. Basically in the direction of field projection.
@chosunone @fasterthanlime I think this just comes down to making the borrow checker (static analysis) more intelligent so that you can have more granular *borrows*, right?
Actually marking the fields as mutable or immutable doesn’t make much sense to me either, so I guess you’re suggesting either new syntax when borrowing or else a smarter borrow checker?
(It’s a tension point to be sure but I don’t hit it very often)
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Unfortunately the ecosystem is split between colored functions and coloured functions
@fasterthanlime I frequently write both and TBH this isn’t even in my top 10 complaints
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@yanns they use `_` for that? huh! been a while since my EPFL days
@fasterthanlime they used '_' for a lot of things, too much actually, bringing confusion. In Scala 3, they tried to reduce this, for example by using '*' for imports.
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I am NOT making a Rust replacement, but — if you could fix one* thing about Rust syntax/semantics/etc. what would you fix?
(*one per reply, multiple replies per household are allowed)
@fasterthanlime The `Index` trait would be able to returned owned smart pointers.
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I am NOT making a Rust replacement, but — if you could fix one* thing about Rust syntax/semantics/etc. what would you fix?
(*one per reply, multiple replies per household are allowed)
@fasterthanlime well my number one was fixed literally in my birthday in 1.88 with if let chaining. And that was a complaint from the first day I started writing Rust about 8 years ago
These days my biggest complaints are probably
1. The relatively clunky syntax for nested lookups in deeply optional trees like JSON structures.
2. The lack of a Swift style defer block. This can be emulated with scope/drop guards but a proper keyword would be so much nicer. -
I am NOT making a Rust replacement, but — if you could fix one* thing about Rust syntax/semantics/etc. what would you fix?
(*one per reply, multiple replies per household are allowed)
@fasterthanlime List<T>, Collection<T>, Map<K, V> (https://github.com/bbqsrc/collections) -- and also that concrete methods override trait methods, not the other way around (related to the above, was a shitshow implementing this.)
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@fasterthanlime The syntax for traits: in my head, "I am writing a struct implementing this trait", not "this trait is also implemented by my struct".
@latenightowl @fasterthanlime Agreed.
Though even if one stayed with the existing approach
> trait SomeTrait for Type
would be better than the
> impl SomeTrait for Type
Rust today uses.
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Unfortunately the ecosystem is split between colored functions and coloured functions
This would honestly make a decent Twitch stream
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@arichtman @pndc yeah exactly the fix is unsoundness so..
@fasterthanlime @arichtman @pndc invent a concept of restricted or external traits and go insane at the consequences
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@lutzky @fasterthanlime I would very much like a garbage-collected language that shares the Rust standard library and has first-class interop with Rust libraries.
I have no idea if it’s possible though.
@samir @lutzky @fasterthanlime I have done experimental crimes in the past on this, and to a large extent this is possible.
The problem is of course the infinite number of edge cases and the fact that, in practice, you'd need to use the C ABI to have nice things. And the C ABI is the antithesis of nice things.
