Before making criticisms that Garbage Collection "defeats the point" of Rust, it's important to consider that Rust has many other strengths:
- Rust has no overhead from a "framework"
- Rust programs start up quickly
- The rust ecosystem makes it very easy to compile a command-line tool without lots of fluff
- The strict nature of the language helps guide the programmer to write bug-free code.
In short: There's a lot of good reasons to choose Rust that have little to do with the presence or absence of a garbage collector.
I think having a working garbage collection at the application layer is very useful; even if it, at a minimum, makes Rust easier to learn. I do worry about 3rd party libraries using garbage collectors, because they (garbage collectors) tend to impose a lot of requirements, which is why a garbage collector usually is tightly integrated into the language.
- Rust has no overhead from a "framework"
- Rust programs start up quickly
- The rust ecosystem makes it very easy to compile a command-line tool without lots of fluff
- The strict nature of the language helps guide the programmer to write bug-free code.
In short: There's a lot of good reasons to choose Rust that have little to do with the presence or absence of a garbage collector.
I think having a working garbage collection at the application layer is very useful; even if it, at a minimum, makes Rust easier to learn. I do worry about 3rd party libraries using garbage collectors, because they (garbage collectors) tend to impose a lot of requirements, which is why a garbage collector usually is tightly integrated into the language.