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by bewo001 848 days ago
I was thinking of things like Box, Rc, Arc, Cell, Refcell. Then there is also the macro language, which integrates Scheme concepts. Like C++, it is a huge language, with extra wrinkles for every new corner case. Again, maybe this all is unavoidable if one wants to have zero cost abstractions. Hopefully, language designers will learn from Rust and come up with something more elegant.

No disagreement about Perl's ugliness..
1 comments
steveklabnik 848 days ago
All of the types you mentioned are library constructs, not syntax.

Macros are syntax though.

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bewo001 848 days ago
I might have mis-interpreted this statement: "Certain types and traits that exist in the standard library are known to the Rust compiler." (https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/special-types-and-traits...")
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steveklabnik 848 days ago
Out of those, Box is the only one that is, and the way that it is is not syntax: it has one exception, and that’s that you can move the contents out of it via a dereference. That’s making existing syntax semantically valid, not introducing new syntax.

In terms of syntax, you create a box with Box::new just like you might any other struct.

EDIT: anyway I'm not saying that means that your underlying issue isn't real, just that I think describing it as "syntax" makes the issue confusing to understand. It sounds to me like maybe you think Rust programs are too verbose?

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