Speculative: Rust for base system components

[Eric McCorkle]

On 12/31/18 1:56 AM, Conrad Meyer wrote:
> Rust has many of the exact same problems C++ has.  Sure, it avoids a
> few classes of issue.  But it doesn't fix the classic C++ problems of
> extremely slow build times (if you think C++ is bad, Rust is worse)
> and having a kitchen sink of language features that make Rust and C++
> code difficult to grok.

I would debate the kitchen sink claim.  For one, Rust benefits from a
solid understanding of type systems that didn't exist when C++ was
created.  Proper parameterized types are a significant improvement over
C++ templates (the same holds for Java's generics, but that's
tangential).  This alone reduces the complexity of the language (and its
error messages) considerably.  While I give C++ slack on the issue of
templates because Somebody Had To Go First, that doesn't mean I relish
the idea of writing C++ code.

Beyond that, the C++ standardization process these days is seemingly
aiming at bringing everything under the sun into the language itself,
whereas Rust went for a syntax extension system and an overall language
design that avoids the need to graft everything into the language
itself.  (Side note: as much as I loathe macros in programming
languages, Rust actually seems to have produced a reasonable macro-like
system)

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