Over the past 2 years I've been writing Rust services for my own startup. Some were straightforward CRUD, some advanced language parsing and ML services. Some thoughts:
- Rust tends to push you to make good decisions. In my case, one of these good decisions was to ditch an ORM (which has always slowed me down) and instead write Postgres queries directly via SQLx. The compile time checks against an actual DB helped my speed dramatically
- Free performance can be a really big help when you are trying to figure out an API or algorithm. It's really helpful to know that my unoptimized code won't tank the server, and also helps me save costs on the cloud.
- "It doesn't compile, or it doesn't break" is kinda a mantra for Rust, and really helps me focus on problems at hand, instead of hunting down bugs.
> You will have a hard time hiring Rust developers.
I've found that there is a drastic difference between hiring devs willing to learn Rust, and devs that want to work with you because you are using Rust. The bar of those devs that seek out a Rust position tends to be very high.
> We made a huge mistake early on by adopting Actix as the web framework for our service...(To be fair, this was a few years ago and maybe things have improved by now.)
Actix-web has gone through some version-churn, but it's never been "buggy" in my experience. The experience multiple years ago is vastly different than today, but even my older services written years ago with Actix-web are still running fine.
> Libraries and documentation are immature.
Perhaps in years past, but I've always found the docs for Rust and its libraries to be very good. Folks write entire books on elements of Rust, and the standardization of the display of crate docs keeps things consistent.
> Rust makes roughing out new features very hard.
The "json!" macro can come in handy here. Also Github Copilot is a godsend for this.
> What really bites is when you need to change the type signature of a load-bearing interface and find yourself spending hours changing every place where the type is used only to see if your initial stab at something is feasible. And then redoing all of that work when you realize you need to change it again.
Hours? These type of corrections are spoonfed to you via errors at compile, or via the IDE. I've never had to spend hours on this. Everyone of these changes could be a bug, and having a typesafe language is a huge help here.
I recognize I might be in the minority, but I've really enjoyed using Rust for services for my startup. It's helped me move fast, but maybe I'm a special case. I'm curious to hear other's experiences.
Not special. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I often reach for Rust when Python could do, but it’s a bit bigger than a one page of code program. I also forget I’ve been doing Rust nearly full time since late 2015. And before that 15 years of C and understanding memory, etc. Maybe we’re just a rare breed.
- Rust tends to push you to make good decisions. In my case, one of these good decisions was to ditch an ORM (which has always slowed me down) and instead write Postgres queries directly via SQLx. The compile time checks against an actual DB helped my speed dramatically
- Free performance can be a really big help when you are trying to figure out an API or algorithm. It's really helpful to know that my unoptimized code won't tank the server, and also helps me save costs on the cloud.
- "It doesn't compile, or it doesn't break" is kinda a mantra for Rust, and really helps me focus on problems at hand, instead of hunting down bugs.
> You will have a hard time hiring Rust developers.
I've found that there is a drastic difference between hiring devs willing to learn Rust, and devs that want to work with you because you are using Rust. The bar of those devs that seek out a Rust position tends to be very high.
> We made a huge mistake early on by adopting Actix as the web framework for our service...(To be fair, this was a few years ago and maybe things have improved by now.)
Actix-web has gone through some version-churn, but it's never been "buggy" in my experience. The experience multiple years ago is vastly different than today, but even my older services written years ago with Actix-web are still running fine.
> Libraries and documentation are immature.
Perhaps in years past, but I've always found the docs for Rust and its libraries to be very good. Folks write entire books on elements of Rust, and the standardization of the display of crate docs keeps things consistent.
> Rust makes roughing out new features very hard.
The "json!" macro can come in handy here. Also Github Copilot is a godsend for this.
> What really bites is when you need to change the type signature of a load-bearing interface and find yourself spending hours changing every place where the type is used only to see if your initial stab at something is feasible. And then redoing all of that work when you realize you need to change it again.
Hours? These type of corrections are spoonfed to you via errors at compile, or via the IDE. I've never had to spend hours on this. Everyone of these changes could be a bug, and having a typesafe language is a huge help here.
I recognize I might be in the minority, but I've really enjoyed using Rust for services for my startup. It's helped me move fast, but maybe I'm a special case. I'm curious to hear other's experiences.