Rust vs C++

Comparing the developer experience

The tools

C++

• Building: Make (and CMake because Makefiles are horrendous to write manually)
• Testing: Catch2 or GTest
• Documentation: Doxygen

Rust

• Building: cargo build
• Testing: cargo test
• Documentation: cargo doc

Using Packages

C++

• Find a package
• Download the minimum source code that provides the interface for the package
• Download the package’s prebuilt binaries for your system OR
• Download the entire source code and build the binary yourself OR
• Download the entire source code and include it directly in YOUR source code so it gets built directly into YOUR binaries
• Redo all previous steps every time you want to bump the version of the package

Rust

• Find a package that’s available as a Crate
• Add its name and required version to cargo.toml
• To bump the version, update the version specified in the cargo.toml

Building for WASM

C++

• Install the dependencies required by the the Emscripten Software Development Kit
• Install the the Emscripten Software Development Kit
• Build your code to wasm emcc hello.c -o hello.html -s WASM=1
• Manually open hello.html in a browser

Rust

• cargo install trunk
• trunk serve (this builds the code to WASM, hosts a dev server, automatically opens the webpage in your browser, and automatically rebuilds and refreshes your browser window whenever you make a code change)

The code

It’s easier to write C++ that compiles than Rust that compiles. But C++ will let you write inefficient code, and actually pushes you towards it.

Passing Arguments

Naiive C++:

function myFunction(Item item)...

myFunction(item);

Optimised C++:

function myFunction(const Item& item)...

myFunction(item);

Naiive Rust:

fn myFunction(item: Item) // this will MOVE the `item` object automatically, not copy it.

myFunction(item)

Technically the same as the C++ version but in Rust:

fn myFunction(&item: Item)

myFunction(item)