[Hamuko]

I do remember the compiler constantly suggesting lifetimes to me as a newcomer to the language, so it didn't really feel that opt-in. Quite a lot of the suggestions also started to look like someone poured alphabet soup all over the code.

[namjh]

That's because the code triggering compilation error is using reference. If you use Rc or Arc (which pays runtime cost) there should be no lifetime at all.

Albeit I admit there somewhat exists a community sentiment like "if you use Rust, you should maximize its zero cost abstraction feature so lifetime is good and generics good", and my (minor) opinion is that, it's not always true to all users of Rust.

And the clumsy Arc<Mutex<Something<TheOtherThing>>> makes users feel bad about using runtime cost paid types. Maybe we should introduce easy Rust dialect which transpiles into Rc/Clone everywhere but I doubt it's trivial to transpile.

[dmurray]

> And the clumsy Arc<Mutex<Something<TheOtherThing>>> makes users feel bad about using runtime cost paid types

Yeah, this would look worse than any of the "complicated syntax" examples in the blog post.

A language should be designed so that the typical case is the easiest to read and write. Syntax for the most common abstractions. Rust forces you to be explicit if you want to do an Arc<Mutex<Box>>>, but lets you inherit lifetimes almost seamlessly. That means it's not idiomatic to do the first, and it is to do the second.

Languages with a lot of historical baggage don't follow this pattern: if you want to write idiomatic modern C++ it's going to be uglier and more verbose than you see in K&R. But in Rust's case it's clear what the designers encourage you to do.

[_answ]

Simple != idiomatic. It's perfectly idiomatic to `Arc<Mutex<Box>>` in Rust, and it is more complex because it deals with more concerns than a simple reference, namely being thread-safe. Sometimes you need that, sometimes not, but you have to be explicit about it.

[steveklabnik]

There’s no reason to have a Box<T> there, because Arc already boxes.

[cozzyd]

Not sure why you'd compare modern C++ to K&R which is a C book. Modern C is in fact less ugly than ancient C due to sugar like compound literals.

[scotty79]

That's mostly because borrows are a curiosity of Rust that newcommers are quickly introduced to while they are mostly just a perfomance gimmick.

If you come to rust from high level language you can just do everything with Rc and cloning.

It's still hard because Rust, in opposition to every pipular language, is a value oriented language. But at least you won't have much contact with alphabet soup.

[estebank]

If you encounter compiler errors that are misleading in their suggestions, or have proposals for better output in specific cases, please file a ticket: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%...