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by superkuh 490 days ago
Correct. I avoid rust because it is a language where it's pretty much infeasible to have a compiler from your system repositories unless it's a rolling distro. Having some random application require updates so often (like a browser) is marginally acceptable if distasteful. But a compiler and toolchain that exists entirely outside my distro? No thanks.

What I am confused about is how everyone is pretending this is a normal software situation. It's vastly weird and different from most compilers and toolchains. It may be normal if you're coming from web dev but web dev is not normal and not a healthy ecosystem.
1 comments
duped 490 days ago
It's totally normal except for C/C++ toolchains on Linux. C/C++ compilers are managed this way on MacOS, Windows, and by most embedded toolchains.

Why don't you want your toolchain managed outside your distro? Don't you want your software to run outside your distro?

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actionfromafar 490 days ago
Longing for a more stable world doesn't sound very weird to me. Maybe core Rust development will slow down in the future.
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duped 489 days ago
I came over to Rust from C++ and I really don't want core Rust development to slowdown. The changes you see are mostly useful APIs in std.

Compare to C++, where using a new std API/type can take a literal decade and might not be backwards compatible on targets even once compiled.

Stability is only useful if it gets in the way of reliability and convenience. That's true in C/C++ because of the compilation and development model. In Rust those problems don't exist, so "stability" of std largely gets in the way.

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Dylan16807 489 days ago
Well, you're never going to have a stable world when you're constantly pulling in updates to your dependencies. In any language.

And if you stop updating those, you stop needing rustc updates.

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actionfromafar 489 days ago
Right, but in the rest of the world it's more common for the libraries to support a wider range of compiler and language versions. The culture as of yet of Rust, is that more libraries require the newest compiler.
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Dylan16807 489 days ago
But that wider range by itself means nothing. It only matters in the context of what it enables and how well it enables it.
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