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When I read this, I have to think of a take I heard a few times, namely that "Rust would be better off if the language had opted for a proper effect system from

When I read this, I have to think of a take I heard a few times, namely that "Rust would be better off if the language had opted for a proper effect system from the get go, instead of grafting specialized forms of it onto the language now." Does anyone have some thoughts on this? I just lack the knowledge to really evaluate that sort of take. There's a lot of discussions on whether async Rust is "good" or "bad", or the right abstraction or not, but it's pretty clear that (at this point) we're more less stuck with it (for better or worse), but that's not what I am asking about. What I am asking is whether a proper effect system would have genuinely, and legitimately improved or significantly simplified the whole state of Rust async or not, and how. A lot of the async Rust problems sound like "hard" problems, and I'm a bit skeptical that a feature like that would really reduce the "heavy lifting" you have to do.

withoutboats3 3y ago
This is the subject of the final section of this post, effect systems specifically are referenced in the margin note.
zozbot234 3y ago
> Does anyone have some thoughts on this? Discussed most recently @ https://www.abubalay.com/blog/2024/01/14/rust-effect-lowering https://www.abubalay.com/blog/2024/01/14/rust-effect-lowerin... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39005780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39005780 It's a viable approach if you can take the time to get it right. Async rust started out with more of a limited, MVP approach, where they first did the simplest thing that would surely work, and then went on from there.
mrkeen 3y ago
> Rust would be better off if the language had opted for a proper effect system from the get go It does sound very appealing, but I'm not sure there's enough prior art to steal from, even now, but especially not when Rust was hatching. It would probably be too big a gamble. I'm checking out Koka in that space, but it's early days.

withoutboats3 3y ago

This is the subject of the final section of this post, effect systems specifically are referenced in the margin note.

zozbot234 3y ago

> Does anyone have some thoughts on this? Discussed most recently @ https://www.abubalay.com/blog/2024/01/14/rust-effect-lowering https://www.abubalay.com/blog/2024/01/14/rust-effect-lowerin... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39005780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39005780 It's a viable approach if you can take the time to get it right. Async rust started out with more of a limited, MVP approach, where they first did the simplest thing that would surely work, and then went on from there.

mrkeen 3y ago

> Rust would be better off if the language had opted for a proper effect system from the get go It does sound very appealing, but I'm not sure there's enough prior art to steal from, even now, but especially not when Rust was hatching. It would probably be too big a gamble. I'm checking out Koka in that space, but it's early days.