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0 pointspclmulqdq1y ago0 comments

My personal opinion is that if you want to contribute a language feature, shit or get off the pot. Leaving around a half-baked solution actually raises the required effort for someone who isn't you to add that feature (or an equivalent) because they now have to either (1) ramp up on the spaghetti you wrote or (2) overcome the barrier of explaining why your thing isn't good enough. Neither of those two things are fun (which is important since writing language features is volunteer work) and those things come in the place of doing what is actually fun, which is writing the relevant code.

The fact that the Rust maintainers allow people to put in half-baked features before they are fully designed is the biggest cultural failing of the language, IMO.

0 comments

dralley1y ago

>The fact that the Rust maintainers allow people to put in half-baked features before they are fully designed is the biggest cultural failing of the language, IMO.

In nightly?

Hard disagree. Letting people try things out in the real world is how you avoid half-baked features. Easy availability of nightly compilers with unstable features allows way more people to get involved in the pre-stabilization polishing phase of things and raise practical concerns instead of theoretical ones.

C++ takes the approach of writing and nitpicking whitepapers for years before any implementations are ready and it's hard to see how that has led to better outcomes relatively speaking.

pclmulqdqOP1y ago

Yeah, we're going to have to agree to disagree on the C++ flow (really the flow for any language that has a written standard) being better. That flow is usually:

1. Big library/compiler does a thing, and people really like it

2. Other compilers and libraries copy that thing, sometimes putting their own spin on it

3. All the kinks get worked out and they write a white paper

4. Eventually the thing becomes standard

That way, everything in the standard library is something that is fully-thought-out and feature-complete. It also gives much more room for competing implementations to be built and considered before someone stakes out a spot in the standard library for their thing.

dralley1y ago

>That way, everything in the standard library is something that is fully-thought-out and feature-complete

Are C++ features really that much better thought out? Modules were "standardized" half a decade ago, but the list of problems with actually using them in practice is still pretty damn long to the point where adoption is basically non-existent.

I'm not going to pretend to be nearly as knowledgeable about C++ as Rust, but it seems like most new C++ features I hear about are a bit janky or don't actually fit that well with the rest of the language. Something that tends to happen when designing things in an ivory tower without testing them in practice.

1 more reply

pjmlp1y ago

Unfortunely C++ on the last set of revisions has gotten that sequence wrong, many ideas are now PDF implemented before showing up in any compiler years later.

Fully-thought-out and feature-complete is something that since C++17 has been hardly happening.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointspclmulqdq1y ago0 comments

The fact that the Rust maintainers allow people to put in half-baked features before they are fully designed is the biggest cultural failing of the language, IMO.

0 comments

dralley1y ago

>The fact that the Rust maintainers allow people to put in half-baked features before they are fully designed is the biggest cultural failing of the language, IMO.

In nightly?

C++ takes the approach of writing and nitpicking whitepapers for years before any implementations are ready and it's hard to see how that has led to better outcomes relatively speaking.

pclmulqdqOP1y ago

Yeah, we're going to have to agree to disagree on the C++ flow (really the flow for any language that has a written standard) being better. That flow is usually:

1. Big library/compiler does a thing, and people really like it

2. Other compilers and libraries copy that thing, sometimes putting their own spin on it

3. All the kinks get worked out and they write a white paper

4. Eventually the thing becomes standard

dralley1y ago

>That way, everything in the standard library is something that is fully-thought-out and feature-complete

1 more reply

pjmlp1y ago

Unfortunely C++ on the last set of revisions has gotten that sequence wrong, many ideas are now PDF implemented before showing up in any compiler years later.

Fully-thought-out and feature-complete is something that since C++17 has been hardly happening.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse