I have been inspired to learn Rust and Julia lately. The idea was to use these promising languages in all of my new projects. I wanted to learn Rust because it is a safe and fast replacement for C++. I wanted to learn Julia because it is a language tailored for scientific use that might someday replace Python.

I quickly realized that I would be learning both for the wrong reason. I already know C++ and Python well, and should be starting important new projects in these languages.

One article that changed my mind was “Criticizing the Rust Language, and Why C/C++ Will Never Die” by Eax Melanhovich. Not all the points Melanhovich makes are longer valid. For instance, the speed of Rust has improved significantly over just the past months. However, he is right in that the number and quality of development tools for Rust is way lower than that of C++. And it is hard to argue with the number of vacant positions for  C++ programmers in comparison to those of Rust and Julia.

This does of course not say anything about the quality of these languages. For all I know, Rust may be (or become) a much safer, faster and elegant language than C++. But I understand that many of the benefits I would get from Rust are already available in the new C++11 and C++14 standards. And from using C++ in a modern way.

I found Rust attractive because of its promise of memory safety. It is designed in a way so that you won’t be able to shoot yourself in the foot as easily as you can in C++. However, I’m currently using pointers in C++ the old-fashioned way. I still work with raw pointers, new and delete when I should be using smart pointers. Sometimes I even use pointers when references and values would be the right choice.

I realize now that I need to start a project or two where I use only modern C++. That should hopefully teach me how to steer clear of those nagging segfaults sometime in the future. I’ll be reporting back here about my experiences and will make a list of some recommendations for others who are trying to do the same.