I'm learning Rust at the moment (I'm going to join a new team that uses Rust). I'd say it's quite fun and I'm not good enough to have a strong opinion on the language, but I have a few thoughts though.
So far, I find the language design not super elegant. There are restrictive ownership rules, which are fine, but then a myriad of data structures that let you circumvent these rules. It feels somewhat ad-hoc.
Regarding pattern-matching and enum types, I can see why a C++ programmer is impressed with such constructs, but it's really underwhelming for an OCaml/Haskell programmer.
That being said, C++ is hard and complex and it's refreshing to be able to use a more modern language. Assuming you're certain you can't live with the performance overhead of a GC, Rust fills a gap, but it doesn't seem it's the end of the story. I even wonder if it's necessarily a better choice than modern C++ for someone starting a new project.
So far, I find the language design not super elegant. There are restrictive ownership rules, which are fine, but then a myriad of data structures that let you circumvent these rules. It feels somewhat ad-hoc.
Regarding pattern-matching and enum types, I can see why a C++ programmer is impressed with such constructs, but it's really underwhelming for an OCaml/Haskell programmer.
That being said, C++ is hard and complex and it's refreshing to be able to use a more modern language. Assuming you're certain you can't live with the performance overhead of a GC, Rust fills a gap, but it doesn't seem it's the end of the story. I even wonder if it's necessarily a better choice than modern C++ for someone starting a new project.