Basically, Mercurial is migrating away from Python as its primary and core programming language. You don't say Git is written in Python even if Git were to have a few Python code (I actually don't know, never read Git code), would you?
The Python community agrees that in order to combat performance, Python developers would write C extension and/or compile code with Cython before considering a language migration. You can no longer say Hg is written in Python. You can't cite that in any of your conversation unless you say "was written in Python". This migration is to show that while Python's flexibility and dynamism are great, especially in the context of development velocity, Python is no longer Hg's first-class programming language of choice whenever possible. There is a limit as to how much you can get from Python. That's a blow, a temporary crying moment. I recognize this is cynical or entirely an ego thing. I am, again, to be clear, I am not criticizing the decision to move away to Rust - because I have an equal respect for Rust, but this announcement is nonetheless a sad moment to see another Python project moving away.
Sometimes improvements to a programming language stem from the limitations observed by a popular project (and equally by the large number of users).
P.S. On the other hand, moving CPython devl workflow from Hg to Git was a blow to Hg.
> Basically, Mercurial is migrating away from Python as its primary and core programming language. You don't say Git is written in Python even if Git were to have a few Python code (I actually don't know, never read Git code), would you?
Not necessarily. It would show that you can prototype an application in Python and once you have a stable product you would have a migration part to Rust for optimization. That might be even a bit more convincing than the prospect of starting a new project in a non-GC lang.
> The Python community agrees that in order to combat performance, Python developers would write C extension and/or compile code with Cython before considering a language migration.
Not sure if this is what they're doing here, but you can also write extensions in Rust instead of C. If that were what's happening here, I don't think that it would say anything more about Python than writing a C extension would (although it might say something about C vs. Rust)
You know I think hacker news and reddit can be exasperating because only people who disagree reply.. so nobody ever seems to agree with you or understand you. Just wanted to stop in to let you know that I 100% agree this is a sad moment for a python fan or dev. As a general rust fan (although in this instant I'm a rust hater), this is a nice moment, but I 100% see how this sucks. Its as deflating as if a large rust project ditched rust, or Mozilla maybe said "actually rust was a waste of time lets go do Go or C++".. truly a sad moment. I'm with you on that!
For me, if I received a comment like the one I just wrote, I may feel slightly vindicated and ok about myself, for those of you who wonder why I wrote this comment and are not satisfied with the first sentence as explanation. I'm sure there'll be others who still think this was a stupid comment.. but hopefully someone out there understands where I'm coming from and sees the value in what I'm saying.
The Python community agrees that in order to combat performance, Python developers would write C extension and/or compile code with Cython before considering a language migration. You can no longer say Hg is written in Python. You can't cite that in any of your conversation unless you say "was written in Python". This migration is to show that while Python's flexibility and dynamism are great, especially in the context of development velocity, Python is no longer Hg's first-class programming language of choice whenever possible. There is a limit as to how much you can get from Python. That's a blow, a temporary crying moment. I recognize this is cynical or entirely an ego thing. I am, again, to be clear, I am not criticizing the decision to move away to Rust - because I have an equal respect for Rust, but this announcement is nonetheless a sad moment to see another Python project moving away.
Sometimes improvements to a programming language stem from the limitations observed by a popular project (and equally by the large number of users).
P.S. On the other hand, moving CPython devl workflow from Hg to Git was a blow to Hg.