logoalt Hacker News

superkuhyesterday at 4:40 PM2 repliesview on HN

I hope this kind of thing means Rust stops making so many rapid breaking changes in th compiler. I've tried it twice, once in early 2021 once 2025. Both times I tried to compile a few random projects I found on the web, stuff like a wordpress fanfic scraper, a software defined radio program, etc.

In 2021 my linux distro I was using had just been released 3 months prior but it's rustc already could not compile 2 of 3 projects due to the use of new features added to rustc in those 3 months. In the SDR case I knew the author and he was able to re-write it in more general rust code and it worked great. In 2025 my linux distro had been out for a couple years. None of the rust projects I tried would compile with my rustc.

Rust, in the past, seemed a very bleeding edge, move fast and break things community. I hope that with more people using it in more places the demographics change and people won't always target latest and greatest. A lifetime for the compiler of at least a few years would make it a very useable language. Adoption at microsoft might help this.


Replies

0x457yesterday at 5:12 PM

You can compile any old code with newer rustc as long as old project does not use unstable features that have changed/went away. What are you on? I recently recompiled project from 2015 with latest stable rust just fine.

All breaking changesin rust done via editions and you can mix-and-match editions.

show 1 reply
i2talicsyesterday at 5:19 PM

It sounds like you are not running into breaking changes, you are just running into projects that like to use new features that are not available in your older compiler.