OP in particular seems like someone who is familiar with a variety of languages, hence my comment. In addition, given that their requirements lined up with what Rust is good at, the time investment would be worth it.
When it comes to learning Rust in general, I think the difficulty and amount of time required depends on one’s background and overall learning style. If you are the type of person who wants to fully understand why things are the way they are before moving on, the process may likely slow down further. I think Rust is the kind of language where accepting things as they are at first will help you learn quicker. You can always circle back to dig in later.
For me personally, it took a couple of tries to “get” Rust. It definitely wasn’t straightforward to learn, but it wasn’t insanely complex either. Again, I think background and learning style contribute here.
Your response seemed to fall into a category common amongst Rust enthusiasts, which is to assume anyone resistant to the lure is ipso facto lazy or misguided. Your own question was a hint at laziness. I have no idea how much effort the writer put into evaluating Rust. I doubt you do either.
I don't know why some of us find Rust difficult. Perhaps it just is, or isn't, or is for some people and not for others, or perhaps we are just thick. My suspicion is that there are more people who do than seem apparent, because they tend to get shut down by the very decorous implications of laziness or stupidity that are so characteristic of the Rust community.
Well I didn't see another way to gloss your question:
> would it really be too expensive to invest some time to learn it?
I'm entirely happy to take your word that I've misinterpreted the question. Back-and-forth in comments about intended meaning is rarely useful. So my apologies.
But the general attitude in the Rust community (of which I have no idea whether or not you're a part) absolutely is "Rust is not hard, and if you find it so, that's a measure of your dysfunction, not a description of the language".
The context for that question is important: OP had a set of requirements and Rust seemed to meet them. I’d personally consider investing time to learn technology X if I found out it met my requirements. This is not a Rust-specific thing.
I agree that Rust is not simple to learn. There is a definite learning curve involved, especially at the start. I hope your experience with the community and the language improves going forward.
(1) is a one-time investment and allows you to take advantage of compiler guarantees. (2) is what every other language does for FFI anyways. In Rust, you could have a lightweight wrapper around the C API, but you would lose out on some benefits.
OP said performance was critical, so why would they use a GC language?
OP in particular seems like someone who is familiar with a variety of languages, hence my comment. In addition, given that their requirements lined up with what Rust is good at, the time investment would be worth it.
When it comes to learning Rust in general, I think the difficulty and amount of time required depends on one’s background and overall learning style. If you are the type of person who wants to fully understand why things are the way they are before moving on, the process may likely slow down further. I think Rust is the kind of language where accepting things as they are at first will help you learn quicker. You can always circle back to dig in later.
For me personally, it took a couple of tries to “get” Rust. It definitely wasn’t straightforward to learn, but it wasn’t insanely complex either. Again, I think background and learning style contribute here.
Best of luck on your learning journey!