Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo [LWN.net]

Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo

Posted Feb 11, 2021 19:09 UTC (Thu) by roc (subscriber, #30627)
In reply to: Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo by glaubitz
Parent article: Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo

I would say Rust is adding features at a lower rate than C++ is, currently. C++ just added modules, concepts and coroutines which are each *huge* language features.

I agree with you that multiple popular Rust frontends, in conjunction with a Rust specification, would be a good thing at some point, to clarify implementation bugs vs language features. However it's a huge investment to keep all three C++ frontends going and Rust isn't yet at the point where that could be sustained.

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Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo

Posted Feb 12, 2021 12:34 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (3 responses)

It's just so happened that C++20 got huge number of new features (thus, I think it would be the same story as with C++11/C++14: many users would just skip C++20 completely and go from C++17 to C++23 where rough edges of all these new things would be somewhat softened).

But these things were developed for more than ten years! C++ concepts, in particular, were conceived before Rust even got it's name!

It's just so happened that C++20 is huge release… time will show if Rust would ever have such a huge language-bending moment like C++11 and C++20 were.

Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo

Posted Feb 12, 2021 14:02 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (2 responses)

And it's not like C++23 or C++26 are looking any smaller either. Networking, modularized stdlib, pattern matching, templated `this` (to avoid rewriting the same body for a const, non-const, ref, and rvalue-ref variants of a method), metaprogramming, reflection, contracts, and others I can't even remember right now are all on the docket for the next two releases.

Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo

Posted Feb 12, 2021 17:56 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

The things which you have listed are not larger than what Rust gets in three years, though.

Small additions like these are added rust basically every release.

But concepts and especially modules… they change things. Not just allow you to write less code in some cases, but allow you to do things which weren't possible (or a least weren't feasible) before on the level of them whole program design.

Even metaprogramming doesn't change C++ as much as modules or concepts: you just get “for free” something which was already available before — just with IDL and tools like capnproto.

Sure that's nice simplification, but it doesn't imply insane amount of work which would be needed to make modules or concepts work. They would require changes in literally everything: from standard library to third-party libraries and many other things before they would become truly useful.

All the things that you listed are, actually, pretty minor in comparison: they only need local changes for you to benefit from them.

Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo

Posted Feb 12, 2021 18:41 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> The things which you have listed are not larger than what Rust gets in three years, though.

Maybe not. These are not things that I think any one person's view is going to give the same size and scope for any individual feature as another's view anyways. Personally, these are not "small" things to be adding to C++ (in aggregate).

Pattern matching, at least, adds a decent amount of syntax to the language. Contracts does too (though, thankfully, both are via context-sensitive keywords). Template-this also has some additional syntax (though that feels like a cleanup at least).

Modularized stdlib probably is going to have knock-on effects for projects not using IWYU where types aren't leaking out over entire #include trees.

I'm also aware of the scope of modules pretty intimately: I'm working with the ISO committee to make sure they can be built at all :) .