A Fresh Look at Rust
I've been using Rust to process a large text corpus, and as Armin suggests, it's a really interesting experience. Here are a few things I've noticed so far:1. Writing Rust code definitely takes more time than Python or Ruby, but it's not bad in practice. I can't measure the productivity difference yet, partly because I'm still learning Rust. I do spend more time thinking about how to write zero-allocation and zero-copy algorithms, and trying to get my code to compile (but see 3, below).2. It's possible to write very fast code without compromising memory safety. It's great to see key parsing operations happening in ~100 nanoseconds, with no allocations.3. Rust is one of those languages where I need to work to make the compiler happy, but once I manage that, the code generally works on the first try.4. The tooling is very good: library management, unit testing, benchmarking, documentation, error messages etc., all work very nicely.Overall, it lacks the instant gratification of a really good scripting language. But I keep finding myself back in Emacs, writing more Rust code for the fun of it. And I really enjoy the combination of low-level code, memory safety, and a useful selection of functional programming features. I'm glad to see a new language in this niche.