[adkadskhj]

For me it was things that aided user(dev) experience, and that was primarily things like iterators, enums, and functional patterns like maps (in the robust stdlib), good crate ecosystem. That made a huge DX improvement for me because it was just so applicable in so many scenarios. And to top it all off, i got the DX of things like Iterators with usually zero usability hit - Iterators themselves are fairly complex, at least in the generic param context, but Rust encapsulates that complexity so well that you rarely see it. You just Iterate and gloss over the fact that it's actually really complex.

[Zababa]

We share the same experience then! Right now I'm investing some time into OCaml to see if it could be the "GC'd Rust" that I'm looking for, but I'm having a harder time starting out than with Rust.

[adkadskhj]

Curious, why do you want a GC'd Rust? I imagine there's something about Rust that you feel would be improved with a GC?

[Zababa]

I like not having to think about lifetimes and ownership when I'm building a tree for example, and for most of what I do I can afford the performance hit.

[adkadskhj]

Is there a reason you'd not just throw RC-like solutions on it? Ie the GC is basically going to employ a handful of techniques with overhead like RC, memory Arenas, etc - which you could also use in Rust.

So i imagine you know this, is it the syntax you're trying to avoid? Ie wrapping a lot of things in RC's is annoying?

[Zababa]

A few reasons. Like you said, syntax, wrapping and unwrapping is annoying. Also, RC doesn't cover cases with cyclic references. I think the difference is that for me GC is the default. For me, you need a good reason to not use a GC. Moderns GCs are very, very good and like I said I'd need a good reason to not use it. That's personal though, and I understand that not everyone agrees.

[adkadskhj]

Yea, i can see that. As much as i dislike Go these days, their GC is impressive as hell. I can imagine future GC's will learn a lot from Go.