6 ms·

So, steady-state performance that's about as good as Java or C# on average, but with memory safety, much smaller baseline executable size (yes, even compared to

So, steady-state performance that's about as good as Java or C# on average, but with memory safety, much smaller baseline executable size (yes, even compared to GraalVM Native Image; I haven't checked current .NET AOT), faster startup (yes, I know that's what Native Image does optimize), and lower memory footprint? I'll take that deal, even if there's a substantial gap between safe Rust and C++ or Zig. I badly wanted something like safe Rust when working on desktop applications throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s, and now it's here, with a strong and growing library ecosystem.

pron 14d ago
If that were the actual tradeoff, I'd take it, too (and BTW, Java's memory safety is much better than Rust's, but that's beside the point now). Remember that even 25 years ago you had a very similar thing with C++ vs Java, aside from memory safety, but people didn't make an exceptionally big deal about it then. The main problem with C++ was that, over time, it gets harder and harder to evolve the program, especially while keeping performance reasonable (you can make C++ programs easier to evolve by using a lot of dynamic dispatch and the refcounting GC, but in low-level languages you pay for those in performance dearly). So what you're really getting is, typically, a smaller executable, a faster startup, and lower footprint (which is actually a much more complicated matter, but I won't get into it now) in exchange for significantly higher evolution and maintenance costs forever. This is a good and reasonable tradeoff for small programs, especially CLI tools, and not a very good tradeoff for larger and/or longer-lived programs.