But how in gods name can you call a language "maintainable" if just compiling it after certain time requires some detective work to find the right rustc/cargo versions?
And that's only the first problem with maintaining old Rust projects. There are so many other issues, specially with projects created in very early Rust days.
Tell me, have you ever seen a go project failing due to similar issues? Python had this problem once (2 to 3) and they are still apologising for it.
(Not trying to start a language flame war. I like Rust and want it to succeed. But right now things are a bit chaotic)
I mean, it shouldn't! After some time, you'd be using a newer version. You want to be using an old rustc to compile a project created later in time. There are very very few languages that do not add new features over time. Even Go adds new standard library functionality or toolchain features in new releases.
The Python 2 to 3 situation is very different, that is about new versions not compiling old code. We go to great lengths to make sure that that works well in Rust.
And that's only the first problem with maintaining old Rust projects. There are so many other issues, specially with projects created in very early Rust days.
Tell me, have you ever seen a go project failing due to similar issues? Python had this problem once (2 to 3) and they are still apologising for it.
(Not trying to start a language flame war. I like Rust and want it to succeed. But right now things are a bit chaotic)