[steveklabnik]

I don’t mean this post to be about Go; I have never written significant amounts of Go and have no opinion on its productivity.

Productivity in Rust is difficult to talk about, because of differences in opinion and what I like to call “the TCO problem.”

Because Rust is hard to learn, a lot of folks assume it’s that hard all the time. Which means they assume things take just as long for a new Rustacean as they do an experienced one. This is generally not the case. Once things click and you’re over that hump, it feels like programming in any other language. If there are similar libraries available and I don’t need to create the world from scratch, I am just as productive in Rust as in other languages that also have those libraries, generally.

But that kinda leads into the other thing I alluded to; a lot of people think of “productivity” as “whatever lets me see something quickly.” But this doesn’t capture real prodctivity, in my mind, which includes the total development time, aka, how many bugs do I have to deal with later. Rust moves a lot (but not all, of course!) of this up front. Which can feel like it slows you down (but again, with experience, I find this is actually kinda minimal), but then you save time on the back end by needing to debug less. This means that robust features end up being developed more quickly than in some other “productive” languages I’ve used in the past.

TL;DR things aren’t simple, and “fast to get going” doesn’t inherently mean “productive.”

[quuxplusone]

For anyone like me who wondered what "TCO" is: In this context "TCO" stands for "time-cost optimization," basically the idea that time is money and so you shouldn't be scared of weighing:

- an alternative that costs a small amount of money over a long span of time, against one that costs a large amount of money for just a short span of time

- an alternative that costs money (or time) up front, against one that costs a money (or time) later on

I'm still not 100% sure what "_the_ TCO _problem_" is, specifically; but it definitely has nothing to do with tail-call optimization. :)

[steveklabnik]

Ooos sorry! I meant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_cost_of_ownership

[quuxplusone]

Ha! I guess at least "time-cost optimization" and "total cost of ownership" aren't too terribly different. :)

But there's an interesting difference in framing or worldview between the two acronyms: My assumption of "time-cost optimization" assumed that such tasks as debugging were part of _producing_ a software artifact. Our implied goal (just like in the Rust talk's title) was to maximize _production_ of such artifacts at a reasonable level of quality. The back-loaded testing and bugfixing work might go on for a while (if you made that tradeoff), but it eventually ends in a "product" (or in project failure).

On the other hand, "total cost of ownership" emphasizes that our primary job isn't production but _ownership_ of software, which is open-ended and goes on forever. We have to think not only about "How long will it take to get it right?" but (mostly!) about "How costly will it be to maintain, year after year, even _after_ we get it right?"

[steveklabnik]

Agreed! I also was like "... that's not what I meant but that does kind of work, when I read your comment." :)