this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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The problems come when you don't support anything other than rust. Higher level languages are better suited for trivial applications. Rust isn't exactly a very popular language either so you're not going to attract contributions from random Joe #3. Cosmic's best hope is to attract the attention of the big players and get enterprise support, because random users just don't give a shit about the security upsides of Rust and will judge the DE solely based on its looks and features.
This is a weird take. Rust is very popular and is the current heir apparent to C for systems level stuff. It's a great choice to start a new DE/toolkit.
As for the rest, you're right the end user doesn't care about the language their graphical app is in, but the developers fielding their bug reports and making fixes/features sure do.
Rust is very hyped, but it's not very popular, the TIOBE index has it at 1.5% coming in #14. Which is paltry in comparison to Python, C and C++.
As for whether or not it will replace C in systems, time will tell.
TIOBE is weighted toward languages that have existed for a long time by virtue of counting lines written / skilled engineers etc. but the speed at which Rust is climbing that list is a better indicator. Also, a lot of the languages above it wouldn't be appropriate for anything like a DE.
But you're right, it's hyped, I just think the hype is real.
Yep, windows kernel has a ton of Rust code already, even some of its syscalls are made in Rust. Linux kernel is getting a new GPU driver for NVIDIA written in Rust, and GPU driver for removed M-series also written in Rust. removed is hiring Rust devs, so is Amazon, Meta, Google...
In the startup space it's been quite good with Rust for some time. I've been writing production code with it for almost a decade. It is not a fad anymore.
A productive, safe, fast and fun language to write with excellent tooling, and we are just getting started.