[alerighi]

C compilers usually backport features in older standards as well (I know, they are breaking the standard). One example are C++ style comments, that are in the standard only from C99, but basically every compiler supports them even in ANSI/C90 mode.

By the way the difference is that Rust is not a standard, thus is easier to evolve (the process is much shorter). On the other side, the fact that a language changes slowly it's something good in a way, it means that you don't have to continue to change the way you do things, and update older projects.

That to everyone that has to maintain code for decades it's important. And every serious software project (not hobby stuff) does stay in production decades really. I don't use Rust, or even C++, for that reason.

[nicoburns]

> On the other side, the fact that a language changes slowly it's something good in a way, it means that you don't have to continue to change the way you do things, and update older projects.

Isn’t the point of Rust editions that this is also true for Rust? Don’t want to update to a new edition? Then… don’t. The old ones are maintained.

[lfairy]

> By the way the difference is that Rust is not a standard, thus is easier to evolve (the process is much shorter).

Another thing is ABI.

C and C++ are ABI-stable, which means that many historic mistakes (intmax_t, std::regex, polymorphic allocators) are impossible to fix.

Rust only promises source compatibility, not ABI compatibility, so it has a lot more freedom to tweak its design.

https://thephd.dev/binary-banshees-digital-demons-abi-c-c++-...