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points by lelanthran 3 days ago | 0 comments
> Why do people try to vibecode PDF engines that already exist in Rust?

Nothing surprising here; pre-2022/2023, Rust was used primarily for rewriting things (compared to, for example, Go, which was used to write new things, not replacements).

I don't find it surprising that the pattern is continuing.

[–] stymaar 3 days ago
It's not a rust specific thing at all, HN has had it's share of “<something> but written in JavaScript” (as well as in Go[1]) back in the day, it's just a common thing when a language becomes popular, as their are more people wanting to show off that they did something than people with genuinely original ideas worth posting on HN.

It's not that Rust or Go aren't used to write new things, it's just that the bar for reaching the HN front page with new things is much higher than for mere copycats.

[1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=written+in+Go

[–] embedding-shape 3 days ago
> Rust was used primarily for rewriting things (compared to, for example, Go, which was used to write new things, not replacements

How could you possibly know this, for either languages?

FWIW, I've only worked and written greenfield software with Rust, and have only worked professionally with Golang to replace existing services. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, nor in the complete opposite. But I don't think either of us could say how either of the languages or "primarily used", that's a bit too much.

[–] lelanthran 3 days ago
Anecdotally, it's not representative of your experience.

But... Rewrite-it-in-Rust is a meme, while rewrite in Go is not.

[–] embedding-shape 3 days ago
> Anecdotally, it's not representative of your experience.

I'm glad you got the gist of my comment :)

> But... Rewrite-it-in-Rust is a meme, while rewrite in Go is not.

Today no, but it definitely was when it first became popular, "X but in Go" was fairly common on the HN frontpage and elsewhere. Just like "X but in Ruby" used to be a thing too, but isn't anymore.