I'm reading the "rust book" and it's making sense so far but one thing I noticed is that the book doesn't use the words primitive or non-primitive. Instead it uses "variable of known size" or "variable of unknown size". Is primitive not a term used by rustaceans?
#Does rust use the term primitive?
latent tartan
tropic grove
primitive is used but it has nothing to do with the size
latent tartan
can you explain?
tropic grove
primitives are used for "native" types (sorry can't think of a better term to explain it ) like i32, u32, bool, etc which are defined directly in the compiler
latent tartan
So these types of variables are called primitives
Do you know why the rust book doesn't use the word?
latent tartan
primitives are used for "native" types (sorry can't think of a better term to ex...
Yeah this makes sense I already associate the term primitive with these types
tropic grove
i'm not sure why the book doesn't use the term
torn river
can you explain?
yeah like
types that can't broken down into smaller pieces
hence primitive
makes sense right?
latent tartan
yeah I understand I was just wondering why the book doesn't use the term
golden kestrel
It's possibly just because the distinction doesn't have as much practical impact in rust as it does in some languages. Like, in Java, every non-primitive is heap allocated, whereas in rust the only thing that's special about primitives is that they're not defined as compositions of other things
pulsar siren
It doesn't use the terms often in the rest of the book but "primitive" is used in the book, in the Data Types section for example
pulsar siren
The historical perspective: in late 2015, just before print publication of the first ed book, the term primitive was briefly discussed to potentially be pejorative, and edited out in several places as a small part of a wider edit pass. Nowadays in the book, primitive is only used as the adjectival form, not as a noun.
north crag
The historical perspective: in late 2015, just before print publication of the f...
Oh this is interesting, lots of these discussions make me realize that "terms of art" are not actually very descriptive. Something like "fundamental types" or "intrinsic types" would get the point across better, and have a more clear distinction from user-defined types
pulsar siren
also to note that this thread defines primitive types as "types that can't be broken down into smaller pieces" but the Rust Book actually defines tuples and arrays as "primitive compound types", which is... not quite that.
north crag
Right, slices and arrays aren't atomic either
rough heath
There is a module for it https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/primitive/index.html
north crag
Oh that reminds me, I think I can rip out all the doc(primitive) handling in rustdoc if I change libstd to document the re-exports instead
Oh wait I remember why this is all so complicated, libstd wants to override the core docs rather than appending 🤦
Never mind I am not doing any more product design for rustdoc I refuse
rough heath
show us on the doll where rustdoc has touched you
rough heath
we do thank you for all the sacrifice 