[0; 2] and [0, 2] are both valid in Rust, but mean different things. http://doc....

ivoras · on March 10, 2015

> I suggest learning the language before making an attempt to criticize it.

I will learn it.

I like the semantics of Rust, it's a thing which needed to be attempted. What I am suggesting is, that for a language to be popular and accepted in already existing communities, it should have as little syntactic differences from the standards already present in those communities (or more elaborate: that things with similar semantics should have similar syntax). This does not preclude adding both new semantics and new syntax to the language.

In this case, I think the "target audience" for Rust is the crowd already familiar with C and C++, and languages (which are in many cases superior to C and C++) with significant differences such as LISP, Haskell, Erlang are vastly less popular compared to C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript.

As a counter-example to my claim I recognize Python, which succeeded even if it was radically different and even today has some serious issues (for me, it is its performance and the GIL in CPython). IMO, it succeeded precisely because it was radically different than mainstream languages before it, so it didn't cause "mind crosstalk" issues you get when you encounter something which seems familiar but actually isn't.

Of course, this is inconsequential, it really boils down to arguing about personal taste and preferences. And even if I am right, if the semantics of Rust become popular, I'm sure that a more C-like language will evolve from it (maybe called Crust? :D ). If I am wrong, Rust will live long and prosper as it is.

kyllo · on March 10, 2015

The syntax itself is such a low hurdle to learning the language it hardly merits complaining about, especially given how drastically the Rust core team has simplified the syntax of the language since its early days. It's not particularly arcane at all if you've ever used C/C++, Ruby, and perhaps any ML-family language (SML, OCaml, Haskell, F#) because Rust cherry-picks the best ideas from each of those languages.

Go is intended to be syntactically very C-like, you may find it more comfortable than Rust in that regard.