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by devit 1878 days ago
Being written in TypeScript and not Rust seems quite a big liability that might see Rome never be popular or lose out quickly due to inferior performance.

There is already RSLint and SWC as JavaScript tools written in Rust and I would expect such tools to take over, with a good choice of it happening before Rome is ready.
2 comments
jeroenhd 1878 days ago
I don't see the relevancy of rust here, but you're right that at this point any language that compiles directly to machine code will blow any javascript tool out of the water any time.

Of course, perf is only one reason to use a tool, I expect javascript based tooling to stick around for much longer because developers are used to them now. And, of course, if all you know is frontend, everything starts to look like a javascript job.

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serverholic 1878 days ago
I'd prefer my tools to use languages that are compiled + memory safe. Basically that just leaves rust or go.

But rust also has other features that can help prevent bugs regarding concurrency and more. So rust is a feature in my book and not just an implementation detail.

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jeroenhd 1878 days ago
I agree, but there's still plenty of alternatives. Pre-compiling languages like C# and Java will already provide a speed bonus, and with stuff like GraalVM's native images and Kotlin native you can squeeze even more performance out of these GC'd languages.

At this point in time, improvement comes from "anything faster than node". Hell, you might even manage to get a performance benefit out of PHP with the way things are right now.

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mssundaram 1878 days ago
[redacted]
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serverholic 1878 days ago
Is go not compiled and memory safe?
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valyagolev 1878 days ago
no, much worse. they might actually win by overspending on marketing and feature-bloat, and we’ll be stuck working with slow tools
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intergalplan 1878 days ago
Yeah, I'm over here going, "oof, I hope they don't do too well by burning VC cash, or they might stifle esbuild and deno and similar efforts, and we'll remain stuck at this embarrassingly-low local maximum even longer"
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valyagolev 1878 days ago
what else would VC money be for other than a sweet vendor lock-in?
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