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Phoenix Framework vs Rust: What are the differences?
Introduction: When comparing the Phoenix Framework, a web development framework for Elixir, with Rust, a systems programming language, there are several key differences that developers should be aware of.
Language Type: The Phoenix Framework is built on Elixir, a functional programming language designed for concurrent, distributed systems, while Rust is a systems programming language focused on safety and performance, suitable for building low-level software like operating systems or device drivers.
Safety Features: Rust is renowned for its strict borrowing rules and ownership model that prevent common issues like null pointer dereferencing, dangling pointers, and data races, ensuring memory safety at compile time. While Elixir, based on the Erlang VM, emphasizes fault tolerance through isolated processes and message passing.
Concurrency Model: Elixir and Phoenix leverage lightweight processes called "actors" for concurrency, where each process can communicate asynchronously and share nothing by default, promoting fault isolation. In contrast, Rust offers concurrency through threads, which share memory by default but mitigate concurrent access issues through ownership rules and thread safety constructs.
Development Speed: Due to its clear syntax and built-in abstractions like the Phoenix LiveView library for real-time web applications, developers using Phoenix can achieve rapid prototyping and iterative development. In comparison, Rust's focus on performance and memory safety may require more upfront planning and detailed coding, potentially resulting in a longer development cycle.
Community and Ecosystem: While both Rust and Elixir have supportive communities, Rust's ecosystem is more mature with a wide range of libraries and tools for various domains like systems programming, web development, and machine learning, whereas Elixir's ecosystem is particularly strong in building fault-tolerant and scalable distributed systems.
In Summary, Phoenix Framework and Rust differ in language type, safety features, concurrency model, development speed, and community support, each catering to different use cases and developer preferences.
So, I've been working with all 3 languages JavaScript, Python and Rust, I know that all of these languages are important in their own domain but, I haven't took any of it to the point where i could say I'm a pro at any of these languages. I learned JS and Python out of my own excitement, I learned rust for some IoT based projects. just confused which one i should invest my time in first... that does have Job and freelance potential in market as well...
I am an undergraduate in computer science. (3rd Year)
I would start focusing on Javascript because even working with Rust and Python, you're always going to encounter some Javascript for front-ends at least. It has: - more freelancing opportunities (starting to work short after a virus/crisis, that's gonna help) - can also do back-end if needed (I would personally avoid specializing in this since there's better languages for the back-end part) - hard to avoid. it's everywhere and not going away (well not yet)
Then, later, for back-end programming languages, Rust seems like your best bet. Its pros: - it's satisfying to work with (after the learning curve) - it's got potential to grow big in the next year (also with better paying jobs) - it's super versatile (you can do high-perf system stuff, graphics, ffi, as well as your classic api server) It comes with a few cons though: - it's harder to learn (expect to put in years) - the freelancing options are virtually non-existent (and I would expect them to stay limited, as rust is better for long-term software than prototypes)
I suggest you to go with JavaScript. From my perspective JavaScript is the language you should invest your time in. The community of javascript and lots of framework helps developer to build what they want to build in no time whether it a desktop, web, mobile based application or even you can use javascript as a backend as well. There are lot of frameworks you can start learning i suggest you to go with (react,vue) library both are easy to learn than angular which is a complete framework.
And if you want to go with python as a secondary tool then i suggest you to learn a python framework (Flask,Django).
We have a lot of experience in JavaScript, writing our services in NodeJS allows developers to transition to the back end without any friction, without having to learn a new language. There is also the option to write services in TypeScript, which adds an expressive type layer. The semi-shared ecosystem between front and back end is nice as well, though specifically NodeJS libraries sometimes suffer in quality, compared to other major languages.
As for why we didn't pick the other languages, most of it comes down to "personal preference" and historically grown code bases, but let's do some post-hoc deduction:
Go is a practical choice, reasonably easy to learn, but until we find performance issues with our NodeJS stack, there is simply no reason to switch. The benefits of using NodeJS so far outweigh those of picking Go. This might change in the future.
PHP is a language we're still using in big parts of our system, and are still sometimes writing new code in. Modern PHP has fixed some of its issues, and probably has the fastest development cycle time, but it suffers around modelling complex asynchronous tasks, and (on a personal note) lack of support for writing in a functional style.
We don't use Python, Elixir or Ruby, mostly because of personal preference and for historic reasons.
Rust, though I personally love and use it in my projects, would require us to specifically hire for that, as the learning curve is quite steep. Its web ecosystem is OK by now (see https://www.arewewebyet.org/), but in my opinion, it is still no where near that of the other web languages. In other words, we are not willing to pay the price for playing this innovation card.
Haskell, as with Rust, I personally adore, but is simply too esoteric for us. There are problem domains where it shines, ours is not one of them.
I chose Golang as a language to write Tango because it's super easy to get started with. I also considered Rust, but learning curve of it is much higher than in Golang. I felt like I would need to spend an endless amount of time to even get the hello world app working in Rust. While easy to learn, Golang still shows good performance, multithreading out of the box and fun to implement.
I also could choose PHP and create a phar-based tool, but I was not sure that it would be a good choice as I want to scale to be able to process Gbs of access log data
Pros of Phoenix Framework
- High performance120
- Super fast76
- Rapid development70
- Open source62
- Erlang VM60
- Well designed46
- Channels45
- Easily Scalable39
- Very extensible35
- Restful35
- Functional Programming11
- Inspired by Rails10
- Great community10
- Beautiful code8
- Ecto8
- Scalable6
- Fault tolerant6
- LiveView feature5
- Elegant4
- Insanely fast and easy4
- Feels like working with rails framework with more power4
- Built-in websocket support3
- Benevolent dictator that decides project course3
- Great integration with GraphQL3
- 2
- Front-End Agnostic2
- Functional approach1
Pros of Rust
- Guaranteed memory safety145
- Fast132
- Open source88
- Minimal runtime75
- Pattern matching72
- Type inference63
- Algebraic data types57
- Concurrent57
- Efficient C bindings47
- Practical43
- Best advances in languages in 20 years37
- Safe, fast, easy + friendly community32
- Fix for C/C++30
- Stablity25
- Zero-cost abstractions24
- Closures23
- Great community20
- Extensive compiler checks20
- No NULL type18
- Async/await18
- Completely cross platform: Windows, Linux, Android15
- No Garbage Collection15
- Great documentations14
- High-performance14
- High performance12
- Generics12
- Super fast12
- Fearless concurrency11
- Guaranteed thread data race safety11
- Safety no runtime crashes11
- Compiler can generate Webassembly11
- Macros11
- Helpful compiler10
- RLS provides great IDE support9
- Easy Deployment9
- Prevents data races9
- Painless dependency management8
- Real multithreading8
- Good package management7
- Support on Other Languages5
- Type System1
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Cons of Phoenix Framework
- No jobs6
- Very difficult5
Cons of Rust
- Hard to learn28
- Ownership learning curve24
- Unfriendly, verbose syntax12
- High size of builded executable4
- Many type operations make it difficult to follow4
- No jobs4
- Variable shadowing4
- Use it only for timeoass not in production1
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