{"id":133,"date":"2016-11-01T11:54:47","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T10:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techa.nanosleep.org\/wp\/index.php\/2016\/11\/01\/gnome-and-rust\/"},"modified":"2019-07-26T02:54:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T00:54:27","slug":"gnome-and-rust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hpjansson.org\/blag\/2016\/11\/01\/gnome-and-rust\/","title":{"rendered":"GNOME and Rust"},"content":{"rendered":"

I've been keeping an eye on Rust<\/a> for a while now, so when I read Alberto's statement of support for more Rust use in GNOME<\/a>, I couldn't resist piling on…<\/p>\n

From the perspective of someone who's quite used to C, it does indeed seem to tick all the boxes. High performance, suitability for low-level tasks and C ABI compatibility tend to be sticking points with new languages — and Rust kills it in those departments. Anyone who needs further convincing should read up on Raph Levien's font renderer<\/a>. The usual caveat about details vis-a-vis the Devil applies, but the general idea looks exactly right. Rust's expressiveness and lack of baggage means it could even outperform C for non-trivial code, on top of all the other advantages.<\/p>\n

There are risks too, of course. I'd worry about adoption, growth and the availability of bindings\/libraries\/other features, like a good optional GC for high-level apps (there is at least one<\/a> in the works, but it doesn't seem to be quite ready for prime-time yet). Rust is on an upwards trajectory, and there doesn't seem to be many tasks where it's eminently unsuitable, so in theory, it could have a wide reach: operating systems, platform libraries, both client- and server-side applications, games and so on. However, it doesn't appear to be the de facto language in many contexts yet. Consider the statement \"If I learn language X, I will then be able to work on Y.\" Substitute for X: Java, Javascript, Python, ObjC, C, C++, C# or even Visual Basic — and Y becomes obvious. How does Rust fare?<\/p>\n

That is, of course, a very conservative argument, while in my mind the GNOME project represents, for better or worse, and C use notwithstanding, a more radical F\/OSS philosophy. Its founding was essentially formulated<\/a> as a revolt against the Qt license (and a limited choice of programming languages!), it was an early adopter of Git for version control, and it's a driver for Wayland and Flatpak now. For what it's worth, speaking as mostly a downstream integrator, I wouldn't mind it if GNOME embraced its DNA yet again and fully opened the door to Rust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I've been keeping an eye on Rust for a while now, so when I read Alberto's statement of support for more Rust use in GNOME, I couldn't resist piling on… From the perspective of someone who's quite used to C, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-gnome","category-technical"],"yoast_head":"\nGNOME and Rust - Et tu, Cthulhu<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hpjansson.org\/blag\/2016\/11\/01\/gnome-and-rust\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GNOME and Rust - 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