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How Rust Can Replace C In Python Libraries (infoworld.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the C-u-later dept.

An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld: Proponents of Rust, the language engineered by Mozilla to give developers both speed and memory safety, are stumping for the language as a long-term replacement for C and C++. But replacing software written in these languages can be a difficult, long-term project. One place where Rust could supplant C in the short term is in the traditionally C libraries used in other languages... [A] new spate of projects are making it easier to develop Rust libraries with convenient bindings to Python -- and to deploy Python packages that have Rust binaries.
The article specifically highlights these four new projects:
  • Rust-CPython - a set of bindings in Rust for the CPython runtime
  • PyO3 - a basic way to write Rust software with bindings to Python in both directions.
  • Snaek - lets developers create Rust libraries that are loaded dynamically into Python as needed, but don't rely on being linked statically against Python's runtime.
  • Cookiecutter PyPackage Rust Cross-Platform Publish - simplifies the process of bundling Rust binaries with a Python library.

4 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why use the new language of the month when C has been around for decades, is welll understood and does exactly what we want?

    How long before I start replacing rust with decay? 6 months? A year?

    1. Re:But why? by geoskd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      These days there's pretty much no reason to do any of this, which means that the only times you're going to do it is by accident. ie when you put a bug in your application.

      That has to be the most ignorant thing in these comments so far, and there are some pretty stupid things in the comments above...

      Ignoring the performance of your software is just plain dumb. Web companies tend to get away with it, because they are not paying for the compute power directly, but it still annoys their users. If Google or Bing ignored the performance of the software needed to perform search, they would need vastly more hardware to keep up with demand. It is no accident that the backend of Google Search is written in C++, and that this all runs on a customized linux based OS.

      Do you have an HDMI TV? Have you noticed that it takes many 10's of seconds to turn on? That is because some dumb F^@# thought it would be a good idea to implement the interface in Java and it takes *forever* to start up. 50+ years ago, Kernigan and Ritchie came up with C because assembler was not portable. decades later, Stroustrup came up with C++, and there has not been a language since that can match the performance of either.

      When you are selling 50M of a product, and you want to put a processor that costs $0.50 more in it because you are too incompetent to write efficient code, your ass will be fired and replaced with someone who can do their job. In the mean time I hope I never have to use a product that has any of your "work" product in it.

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
  2. The future of rustlang is tied up with Mozilla by mnooning · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've read a third of the Rust nightly book and watched many, many Rust videos on youtube. I like Rust very much. However, I believe Rust was invented by, is sponsored by, and gets it's major funding from the Mozilla foundation. There is essentially no more Mozilla Thunderbird, and the Mozilla Firefox browser is getting significantly less usage. We've had articles on such here on Slashdot. If the Mozilla browser itself falters any more, would Mozilla, and hence rust, stay alive?

  3. Rust and SJW Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was interested in learning Rust and perhaps using it for some personal projects, but then I discovered how the community seems to care so much about social engineering.

    We're not allowed to use "Master" and "Slave". https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-buildbot/issues/2

    We're required to rephrase old texts to fit into "gender non-binary" language. https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/25640

    I'm sure they don't have problems "killing child processes" though...

    etc., etc.

    I'm not interested in using a programming language as some kind of social engineering experiment.