Matt Godbolt sold me on Rust by showing me C++

The one thing that sold me on Rust (going from C++) was that there is a single way errors are propagated: the Result type. No need to bother with exceptions, functions returning bool, functions returning 0 on success, functions returning 0 on error, functions returning -1 on error, functions returning negative errno on error, functions taking optional pointer to bool to indicate error (optionally), functions taking reference to std::error_code to set an error (and having an overload with the same name that throws an exception on error if you forget to pass the std::error_code)...I understand there's 30 years of history, but it still is annoying, that even the standard library is not consistent (or striving for consistency).

Then you top it on with `?` shortcut and the functional interface of Result and suddenly error handling becomes fun and easy to deal with, rather than just "return false" with a "TODO: figure out error handling".

The result type does make for some great API design, but SerenityOS shows that this same paradigm also works fine in C++. That includes something similar to the ? operator, though it's closer to a raw function call.

SerenityOS is the first functional OS (as in "boots on actual hardware and has a GUI") I've seen that dares question the 1970s int main() using modern C++ constructs instead, and the API is simply a lot better.

I can imagine someone writing a better standard library for C++ that works a whole lot like Rust's standard library does. Begone with the archaic integer types, make use of the power your language offers!

If we're comparing C++ and Rust, I think the ease of use of enum classes/structs is probably a bigger difference. You can get pretty close, but Rust avoids a lot of boilerplate that makes them quite usable, especially when combined with the match keyword.

I think c++, the language, is ready for the modern world. However, c++, the community, seems to be struck at least 20 years in the past.

> I think c++, the language, is ready for the modern world. However, c++, the community, seems to be struck at least 20 years in the past.

Good point. A language that gets updated by adding a lot of features is DIVERGING from a community that has mostly people that still use a lot of the C baggage in C++, and only a few folks that use a lot of template abstraction at the other end of the spectrum.

Since in larger systems, you will want to re-use a lot of code via open source libraries, one is inevitably stuck in not just one past, but several versions of older C++, depending on when the code to be re-used was written, what C++ standard was stable enough then, and whether or not the author adopted what part of it.

Not to speak of paradigm choice to be made (object oriented versus functional versus generic programmic w/ templates).

It's easier to have, like Rust offers it, a single way of doing things properly. (But what I miss in Rust is a single streamlined standard library - organized class library - like Java has had it from early days on, it instead feels like "a pile of crates").

Just give Rust 36 years of field use, to see how it goes.

36 years is counting from the first CFront release. Counting the same way for Rust, it's been around since 2006. It's got almost 20 years under it's belt already.

edit: what's with people downvoting a straight fact?

Because it is counting since CFront 2.0, the first official release with industry use in UNIX systems.

So that would be Rust 1.0, released in 2015, not 2006, putting it down to a decade.

And the point still stands when looking at any long enough ecosystem still in use, with strong backwards compatibility, not only the language, the whole ecosystem, eventually editions alone won't make it, and just like those languages, Rust will gain its own warts.

Fair enough. I can cop to getting the CFront date wrong. Still, a decade since 1.0 is non-trivial.

> eventually editions alone won't make it, and just like those languages, Rust will gain its own warts.

That's possible. Though C++ hasn't had editions, or the HLIR / MIR separation, the increased strictness, wonderful tooling, or the benefit of learning from the mistakes made with C++. Noting that, it seems reasonable to expect Rust to collect less cruft and paint itself into fewer corners over a similar period of time. Since C++ has been going for 36 years, it seems Rust will outlive me. Past that, I'm not sure I care.

C++ editions are -std=something, people keep forgeting Rust editions are quite limited in what they actually allow in grammar and semantic changes across versions, and they don't cover standard library changes.

IDEs are wonderful tooling, maybe people should get their heads outside UNIX CLIs and MS-DOS like TUIs.

Then there is the whole ecosystem of libraries, books, SDKs and industry standards.

I'm not sure who in your mind is forgetting that, or what the rest of your comment means to communicate.

Who are you speaking to who hasn't explored all those things in depth?

I see Rust's restrictions as a huge advantage over C++ here. Even with respect to editions. Rust has always given me the impression of a language designed from the start to be approximately what C++ is today, without the cruft, in which safety is opt-out, not opt-in. And the restrictions seem more likely to preserve that than not.

C/C++ folks seem to see Rust's restrictions as anti-features without realizing that C/C++'s lack of restriction resulted in the situation they have today.

I only maintain a few projects in each language, so I haven't run into every sort of issue for either, but that's very much how it feels to me still, several years and several projects in.