Rust Zealots vs Pragmatism in Software Development

There are a few Rustaceans (the silly name that Rust cultists have now given themselves) who keep posting against those “dinosaurs” who still use C or C++ and refuse to bow to the undeniable superiority of Rust and be assimilated.

As usual, a potentially valid message is completely undermined by the messengers.

I do not know Rust, but one of my goals this year is to gain a good understanding of it. The issue is that these zealous and almost fanatical behaviours do not help, especially when coming from people with only two or three years of experience.

They have clearly never used either C or C++ in anger and are basing their judgement entirely on the opinions of people who work in very narrow circles, such as Linux kernel developers.

One of these trolls even called C and C++ experts with decades of experience “💩 C/C++ fanboys.”

I know, embarrassing.

They keep missing a fundamental point of software development: languages are important, but the problems being solved matter even more. Once you understand the problem, you devise a solution. Then you implement that solution using the most appropriate language. How many times have we repeated this over the past decades?

Moreover, I would be curious to see what kind of code they produce in Rust.

If we are working on a legacy system where C or C++ are the best choices given the constraints, timelines, deadlines, customer adaptability, and feasibility of transformation, then using them is simply pragmatic.

Language jihadism is a sign of insecurity and inexperience.