I Will Not Write Rust Again

Summary

In this candid video, the creator shares their decision to move away from Rust, despite its praised features like safety, enums, and performance. They express frustration with the language's steep learning curve and complex memory management system, which they feel detracts from the enjoyment of coding. The creator also touches on their experiences with Go, but ultimately seeks something new—Zig. They are drawn to Zig’s simplicity, compile-time execution, and direct memory management, believing it could offer the raw joy they once found in C programming. The video reflects a personal decision to explore new horizons in 2025.

Takeaways

• 😀 The speaker is moving away from Rust due to frustrations with its complexity, particularly around macros and memory management.
• 😀 The speaker appreciates Rust's features like enums, safety, and performance, but doesn't enjoy the experience of writing in the language.
• 😀 The speaker enjoyed using Go for a year, despite its limitations, and is now ready to try something new.
• 😀 The speaker criticizes the negative views some people have about Go's syntax, arguing that syntax is not the main issue with the language.
• 😀 Zig is the language the speaker is interested in exploring in 2025, particularly due to its simplicity, metaprogramming capabilities, and high performance.
• 😀 The speaker admires Zig for its clean approach to macros and how it avoids the complexity of Rust's multiple versions and lifetime handling.
• 😀 The speaker enjoys manual memory management and sees it as an advantage, contrasting it with the complexity of Rust's memory safety features.
• 😀 The speaker reflects on their past experience with C, particularly when working with low-level hardware programming and custom protocols, which they found deeply fulfilling.
• 😀 Zig is viewed as an exciting new language by the speaker due to its productivity and potential for high-performance applications.
• 😀 The speaker respects Mr. Hashimoto's engineering opinions and sees Zig as a language gaining traction in the tech world, used for shipping large-scale products.
• 😀 The speaker's decision to try Zig is driven by a desire to find a language that offers both raw performance and a productive programming experience, similar to their past experiences with C.

Q & A

What is the speaker's overall sentiment towards Rust in the video?

The speaker expresses frustration with Rust, despite acknowledging its strengths such as safety, performance, and features like enums and serialization/deserialization. They ultimately decide they no longer enjoy writing in Rust due to the complexity of its memory management model and syntax.

What aspects of Rust does the speaker appreciate?

The speaker appreciates Rust's features such as Clap (a command-line argument parser), its enums, memory safety, and performance. They also admire Rust's ability to handle serialization and deserialization conveniently.

Why does the speaker dislike Rust's memory management?

The speaker finds Rust's approach to memory management cumbersome, particularly the need to manage lifetimes and avoid manual memory management. They describe it as over-complicated, using humor to compare it to the classic joke about people avoiding therapy at all costs.

What is the speaker's relationship with Go?

The speaker enjoys writing in Go, despite acknowledging its flaws. They appreciate Go's simplicity and readability, rejecting criticisms of Go's syntax as being 'unreadable.' They also note some practical issues with Go, such as problems with maps and the complexity of channels and context.

What makes Zig appealing to the speaker?

Zig appeals to the speaker because of its simplicity, metaprogramming capabilities, and high performance. The speaker values that Zig allows for manual memory management and has a straightforward syntax that doesn't require learning multiple versions or complicated macros.

How does the speaker feel about manual memory management in Zig?

The speaker enjoys manual memory management in Zig, finding it liberating rather than a drawback. They appreciate the control it offers, contrasting it with Rust's overly complicated system that avoids manual memory management.

What is the speaker’s opinion on the macro system in Zig compared to Rust?

The speaker prefers Zig's macro system, stating that it is simpler and more straightforward than Rust’s. They highlight that Zig's macros and the language itself are part of the same system, making it easier to work with compared to Rust, where learning multiple versions of the language is required.

What is the significance of C in the speaker's journey as a programmer?

C holds a nostalgic place in the speaker's heart as they reflect on their past experiences working with it in a government project involving low-level systems like custom network protocols and motor controls. They long for the raw, hands-on experience of writing in C, which they hope to recapture through Zig.

What are the speaker’s future programming plans for 2025?

The speaker plans to focus on Zig in 2025, diving deeper into the language and exploring its potential for high-performance applications and metaprogramming. They aim to settle down with a language that meets their needs and offers a productive development environment.

How does the speaker view the popularity of Rust versus Zig?

While Rust is often viewed as the 'language of the gods' by many developers, the speaker notes that Zig seems to be a rising star, particularly among those building high-performance applications. They respect the opinions of developers who are shipping successful products with Zig and believe it has strong potential for the future.