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owlmad03 · 2023-04-09 11:37:49

I wouldn't think of Rust as a language for Front-end development or similar either, I rather think of it as a systems programming language. Yes, it may be able to imitate tools like React, but not replace them. Not even in the slightest.

brianwawok | karma 11149 | avg karma 2.13 · | 2023-09-20 07:19:53

Rust isn’t really a real language for web development though. Just in the bubble here.

mnd999 | karma 3101 | avg karma 2.74 · | 2021-04-13 16:24:33+00:00

Completely, I don’t see rust as a replacement for Scala, Java, Go (and especially) Javascript which tend to be what I use at work. It’s certainly possible, but I don’t think it would add much.

steveklabnik | karma 91260 | avg karma 5.08 · | 2014-11-24 16:03:47+00:00

Rust is very much not aimed at web applications. You could say that it's aimed at _implementing web browsers_, and has become a general purpose language anyway.

pirocks | karma 819 | avg karma 2.72 · | 2021-01-11 00:34:44+00:00

You could make the argument that, that would be a frontend written in rust.

jrs95 | karma 2123 | avg karma 1.5 · | 2017-08-15 02:04:57+00:00

In practice, I don't think Rust is really particularly well suited for this use case (especially the frontend stuff). But this is a really cool demo nonetheless, and the underlying WebAssembly will be something a lot of languages can use someday.

nicolodavis | karma 311 | avg karma 6.76 · | 2020-07-09 04:18:57+00:00

Yep, I don't think Rust is quite there yet for web dev. I didn't use Rust for any frontend interactions. The web app is an SPA written in Svelte. I only used it for the core state update logic, which benefits from the typing and performance boost.

supergreg | karma 525 | avg karma 2.64 · | 2017-10-22 21:45:33+00:00

Not exactly rust, but there's benefits to running the same language both on the front and back end. You could reuse template systems and validation logic for example.

rubber_duck | karma 2864 | avg karma 3.12 · | 2016-12-22 21:20:31+00:00

I hate JS but replacing it with Rust for front end is a bad idea, Rust is a low level systems programming language, it's very suboptimal for high level front end code from productivity standpoint and it adds no value because it's advantages (mem safety with 0 cost abstractions) don't really matter in frontend (JS is super bad at being optimizable but it's still more than sufficiently fast).

nsonha | karma 713 | avg karma 0.39 · | 2021-05-14 16:43:07

I don't get the push for rust as a front-end language, it's very distracting with a lot of low-level features.

Can we just stick with "best tool for the job"?

Rust for performance-critical systems and, say, typescript for front-end? Using a single language for everything is a wet dream that always ends up in complexity and more work as you're fighting the "native" ecosystem.

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gliptic | karma 923 | avg karma 3.17 · | 2015-05-01 20:55:49

Rust isn't a domain-specific language. I don't see why it wouldn't be a good language to implement a JS engine in, from my experience.

nicoburns | karma 22847 | avg karma 3.29 · | 2019-12-17 01:00:06+00:00

People are actually already building stuff in Rust / <native code) / Rust (compiled to WASM running in a browser).

The frontend frameworks in Rust are surprisingly good, and I wouldn't be too surprised if this becomes a mainstream option at some point.

That said, I generally find there isn't all that much advantage to sharing a frontend and backend language.

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pcwalton | karma 42908 | avg karma 5.48 · | 2011-09-09 21:57:01

Rust isn't intended to be run by Web content. It's designed to be a systems language. In that regard it's more comparable to Go.

rybosome | karma 1192 | avg karma 3.06 · | 2014-01-12 08:17:42+00:00

I wondered about that - Rust looks like the one systems programming language I would actually enjoy using, but I don't know enough about it to have an informed opinion.

smabie | karma 4907 | avg karma 1.76 · | 2023-06-05 03:43:43

There's tons of existing languages that are mostly okay that you can develop a webapp in.

Rust as a C++ replacement serves a real unmet need in the marketplace.

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azangru | karma 4079 | avg karma 2.53 · | 2020-10-23 00:26:22+00:00

I'm really confused by what Rust has to offer to frontend. A systems language, sure. Memory safety when no garbage collection, fine. But we do have a garbage collector in the browser. And are expecting to get it for webassembly too. And when I compare Rust code to typescript, I want to howl in agony and ask, why would we inflict on ourselves this punishment. At least I can see the elegance and the beauty of Purescript, although I can't write anything useful in it. But Rust is just so horrendous for frontend, where the existing languages are so much nicer!

nicoburns | karma 22847 | avg karma 3.29 · | 2017-01-15 13:03:48

This is partly true, but there's a lot of crossover. I've been happily using Rust as a node.js replacement for the last few weeks.

the__alchemist | karma 3407 | avg karma 2.28 · | 2021-05-15 15:03:12

Agreed - I built a rust frontend framework, and tried to use it on the backend for a while. Ended up switching back to Python and Javascript for web - I use rust for embedded mostly now.

akaike | karma 52 | avg karma 1.37 · | 2024-02-11 15:50:50

I don't think anyone uses Rust seriously for frontend work or backend unless they have a justified, specific use case; otherwise, currently, it is just a waste of resources and time.

tayo42 | karma 3975 | avg karma 1.82 · | 2023-02-18 11:35:24

Yeah with things like are we web yet, rust presents it self as can do anything language.

Which sure technically it can, but atm I think it's a only appropriate when you have an army of developers at some money printing company that go and write all your dependencies

To answer the above question, like cli tools

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