Rust lacunae [LWN.net]

Rust lacunae

Posted Jun 13, 2021 14:10 UTC (Sun) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988)
In reply to: Rust lacunae by ncm
Parent article: Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

> when in fact its type system was the primary model for Rust's

Um, excuse me? C++'s type system is based on misunderstanding of object orientedness (which in C++, and just about any other "OO" language, is just an extension of structural programming and a far cry from Simula's design, which we're only now rediscovering). Rust's type system is based on algebraic types, in the ML tradition (not as pure as in Haskell, but still). Traits are first-class citizen in Rust, while in C++ they're a design pattern at best, and everything is centered on classes. Completely different paradigms.

BTW, I know that my interpretation of history of programming language design is un-orthodox, no need to point it out ;)

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Rust lacunae

Posted Jun 13, 2021 18:38 UTC (Sun) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (1 responses)

I hear OO purists complain about C++ design all the time.

But no, it was not a "misunderstanding." I think C++ design is probably one of the best compromises possible between efficient machine code and OO. And of course we must remember it stayed compatible with C.

"Pure" object oriented languages are just disgustingly inefficient. Java succeeds because of the immense work put into its JVM and JIT compiling. Python and Ruby show off what happens when everything is an object.

Anyone can look and see that C++ is used where speed matters.

Also it is very funny that you use Simula of all languages as an example of object oriented. Smalltalk was the pure object oriented language. Simula was a mashup of Algol and OO juist as C++ is a mix of C and OO. Simula doesn't contain even half of what became Object Oriented in Smalltalk.

Rust lacunae

Posted Jun 14, 2021 12:28 UTC (Mon) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]

Yes, sorry, should have not clouded my point with my peeves :)

The claim was that Rust bases its type system on C++ and is far behind it. My point was that Rust, while syntactically in the C family, explicitly breaks away from its type system. And is more powerful thanks to a conscious design and not being a heap of ad-hoc.

Rust lacunae

Posted Jun 13, 2021 19:28 UTC (Sun) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

"Unorthodox" meaning wrong, of course.

Language purity is a farce. C++ was never promoted as an "object-oriented language". It has always been a language that provides support for an object-oriented style as one among many, and supports promiscuous mixing of styles for anyone not stupidly wedged into just one.

Most of its type operations are inspired by ML, as in Haskell. Algebraic types are just types. There is no paradigm. Paradigms are a farce too.