> then why Rust? Why not ATS? After all, Rust does let you eliminate certain bugs at compile time, but ATS lets you eliminate so many more.
Of course it's subjective, but I think there is a perception of perceived benefit over effort. Zig gives much perceived benefit over low effort. Rust gives much perceived benefit over more effort. Even more effort for ATS. But the benefit is relative: nobody cares to create totally bug-free software when the software is not critical at all. In addition, most programmers think that solving bugs is part of the job more than preventing them. Solving segfaults is often easier than thinking about formal systems, so the perceived benefit is higher in Zig than ATS - at least for programmers that know C, pointers and the like. Note how the majority of programmers don't deal with memory allocations at all: they use JavaScript and Python, memory is managed. For them, solving memory bugs is not something that makes sense, so the effort of dealing with memory is enough to renounce that freedom altogether. Rust is a very good middle ground: it's a complex language, but there's lot of room for improving its ergonomics.
> Rust is a very good middle ground: it's a complex language, but there's lot of room for improving its ergonomics.
I certainly agree Rust is a much better middle ground than either C or ATS. But so is Zig. What's harder to support objectively is that Rust is a better middle ground than Zig (or vice-versa). We just don't know! They both make different tradeoffs that we can't objectively rule on.
So all I'm saying is that we're left with subjective preferences, and that's fine, because that's all we have! So let's stick to saying "I like Rust's design better" or "I like Zig's design better", and stop trying to come up with objective reasons that are just not well-founded.
At the very least, people should stop comparing Zig to C as part of an argument that claims Rust is good because it prevents the vulnerabilities associated with memory-safety violations, as Zig prevents the most dangerous of those, too.
Of course it's subjective, but I think there is a perception of perceived benefit over effort. Zig gives much perceived benefit over low effort. Rust gives much perceived benefit over more effort. Even more effort for ATS. But the benefit is relative: nobody cares to create totally bug-free software when the software is not critical at all. In addition, most programmers think that solving bugs is part of the job more than preventing them. Solving segfaults is often easier than thinking about formal systems, so the perceived benefit is higher in Zig than ATS - at least for programmers that know C, pointers and the like. Note how the majority of programmers don't deal with memory allocations at all: they use JavaScript and Python, memory is managed. For them, solving memory bugs is not something that makes sense, so the effort of dealing with memory is enough to renounce that freedom altogether. Rust is a very good middle ground: it's a complex language, but there's lot of room for improving its ergonomics.