{"id":258,"date":"2022-08-12T02:20:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T07:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sycured.127.0.0.1.sslip.io\/?p=258"},"modified":"2024-01-14T12:10:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-14T17:10:30","slug":"from-python-to-rust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/blog\/from-python-to-rust","title":{"rendered":"From Python to Rust"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Why am I using Rust instead of Python for my new CLI or API?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why is it the right move?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Python<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I firstly moved complex scripts from Bash to Python due to the simplicity to handle errors and a clear way to manage arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Main libraries used:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.python.org\/3\/library\/index.html\">Python Standard Library<\/a>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.python.org\/3\/library\/argparse.html\">argparse<\/a>: Parser for command-line options, arguments, and sub-commands<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.python.org\/3\/library\/json.html\">json<\/a>: JSON encoder and decoder<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.python.org\/3\/library\/multiprocessing.html\">multiprocessing<\/a>: Process-based parallelism<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.python.org\/3\/library\/subprocess.html#module-subprocess\">subprocess<\/a>: Spawn new processes, connect to their input\/output\/error pipes, and obtain their return codes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/requests.readthedocs.io\/en\/latest\/\">Requests<\/a>: Elegant and simple HTTP library for Python, built for human beings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This easy way has a drawback: Python needs to be installed with all libraries that we&#8217;re using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Rust<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Recently, I rewrote a quick shell script in Rust because I wanted real portability and the easiest way to parallelize tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Main libraries used:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.rs\/clap\/latest\/clap\/\">clap<\/a>: Command Line Argument Parser<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.rs\/attohttpc\/latest\/attohttpc\/\">attohttpc<\/a>: Lightweight and simple HTTP client<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.rs\/rayon\/latest\/rayon\/\">rayon<\/a>: Data-parallelism library that makes it easy to convert sequential computations into parallel<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/doc.rust-lang.org\/std\/index.html\">Rust Standard Library<\/a>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/doc.rust-lang.org\/std\/collections\/struct.HashMap.html\">collections::HashMap<\/a>: A hash map implemented with quadratic probing and SIMD lookup<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/doc.rust-lang.org\/std\/process\/struct.Command.html\">process::Command<\/a>: Process builder, providing fine-grained control over how a new process should be spawned<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/serde.rs\/\">serde<\/a>: Framework for serializing and deserializing Rust data structures efficiently and generically<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.rs\/serde_json\/latest\/serde_json\/\">serde_json<\/a>: Strongly typed JSON library<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.rs\/ureq\/latest\/ureq\/\">ureq<\/a>: Simple, safe HTTP client<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I use <code>attohttpc<\/code> or <code>ureq<\/code> depending on licenses denied due to the project&#8217;s license.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, for big projects where requests can&#8217;t be handled directly\/easily with them, I switch to <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.rs\/reqwest\/latest\/reqwest\/\">reqwest<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This way, I have the perfect portability:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>multi-platform (FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, Windows &amp; co.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>multi-architecture (aarch64, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/RISC-V\">riscv<\/a>, x86-64)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>can do a static build <em>(environment variable <code>RUSTFLAGS=\"-C target-feature=+crt-static\"<\/code>)<\/em> to put the binary into a scratch OCI image<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is it the right move?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I think that it&#8217;s the perfect move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you build some tools that can be deployed and used by people using different operating systems, also if they&#8217;re not administrators of their workstation, we need to use the right programming language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this case, I can&#8217;t require the installation of an entire environment (ex: the Python interpreter with the virtual environment for the tool).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the case of OCI image, it&#8217;s about the size\u2026 so how many seconds is needed to start\/run it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why will I request the user to use a 200+ MB image when the same tool statically compiled is around 10-20 MB?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why not Go?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I haven&#8217;t chosen <a href=\"https:\/\/go.dev\/\">Go<\/a> due to Rust&#8217;s safety guarantee:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>The safety guarantee is one of the most important aspects of Rust; Rust is memory-safe, null-safe, type-safe, and thread-safe by design. &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.okta.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/18\/programming-security-and-why-rust#rusts-safety-guarantee\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Also for its immutability by default, I like to have some <em>Functional Programming<\/em> style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.logrocket.com\/when-to-use-rust-when-to-use-golang\/#rust-vs-go-benchmarks\">performance<\/a> because Go isn&#8217;t so optimized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why am I using Rust instead of Python for my new CLI or API? Why is it the right move?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[29,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/10.42.0.68:8080\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}