But CO2 wise taxis are a lot worse since they have lots of dead mileage when they aren't transportning anything.

That's the thing: this simply isn't true in NYC. They aren't ever not transporting anything there: as soon as they drop off one person, a new rider is right around the corner.

In other American cities, taxis are horrible ecologically because they spend so much time empty, just like you say. Not in NYC, because the ridership is very high.

Ironically, one of the few things that I will say that Microsoft, to this point, has done right on their desktop computers.

Not really. They did OK with handling updates to their own software, but for anything 3rd-party, it's a complete and utter mess, with every application having its own update checker process running constantly looking for updates. There should have been some kind of update service (like Windows Update already is) but which 3rd-party applications can hook into easily and use to keep that software updated.

Using taxis for everything because the lower classes take the train is a lifestyle choice.

That's still a lot more efficient than what most other Americans do, which is drive 30-60 minutes each way on their daily commute, using their own car. The NYers who do take cabs tend to take them short distances (since everything is closer together there), and they're sharing the same vehicles, instead of all having their own, and then needing giant parking lots for them all.

Yes, it'd be better if everyone just took the subway, but if you compare to any other American metropolis, NYC is very efficient. And yes, NYC is probably more wasteful than a lot of other non-American cities, but that's apples and oranges.

I don't know much about Rust besides that the Wikipedia entry says, however just because some other people use it for comparisons with some other languages doesn't mean you can bash Rush just because it isn't as good as some other language at some arbitrary feature; you're just doing the exact same thing as them in that case. Besides, what other languages are they comparing to anyway?

It's one thing to compare Rust to a language which maybe it was intended to compete against, such as C++. It's another thing to compare it to some entirely different language, such as Lisp or Haskell or COBOL or even Perl; Rust certainly wasn't intended to directly compete against any of these.

When pretty much every other language out there, including C and C++, can do string handling better than Rust can, the problem isn't with the fact that competition is happening. The problem is solely that Rust's string handling is total shit.

You're kidding, right? I've never used Rust, so I can't testify to its string handling, but I'm very familiar with C and C++ and using strings in both, and they both completely suck. C is absolutely horrible, and C++ is terrible too if you use the standard library. You only get good string-handling in C++ by switching to a library like Qt.

As for what it's competing against, that's just ridiculous. No language is competing against every language out there; every language has its strengths and weaknesses. C is really good at low-level programming that's one step above assembly, but it sucks at a lot of things (including string handling). Perl is excellent at string parsing, but sucks at performance and readability. R is really good at math, but completely unusable for writing an OS. I'm sure Rust fits in there too somehow. The point is, you can't just compare Rust, or any language, against any other arbitrary language and then bash it because it fails. Is C unusable because it sucks at text parsing? If text parsing is what you need, then yes, but if you're writing an OS kernel, then no.

I don't get your meaning here. "Venial" means "pardonable".

Not true, C# has been off of Windows for a long time by way of Mono.

The conventional wisdom here has been that Mono is always a few steps behind MS's implementation of C#, so it's not fully compatible.

I don't know if that still holds true, but it used to be the general understanding.

I never thought that C++'s standard library was very good, but it's a pleasure to work with compared to Rust's.

Rust's string handling is a particularly bad disaster, and this permeates throughout the entire standard library.

Rust's standard library is pretty pathetic compared to C#'s, or Python's

I just don't see why Rust is getting as much hype as it currently is getting.

I'm not a Rust expert, but I think you're trying to use a hammer to turn a screw here. As I understand it, Rust was never meant to compete with C# or Python; it's supposed to be a system-level language, which means it competes with C and C++. Both of those have pretty lame standard libraries and absolutely horrible string handling. If you want to do real string handling in C++, for instance, you'd be an idiot to use the standard library, and really should use a different library. My personal preference is Qt; string handling in Qt is wonderful and easy, and extremely readable unlike some other C++ libraries I've seen.

From what I read on Rust's wikipedia entry, it appears to be intended to serve much like C or C++, but with memory safety. Null pointers aren't allowed.

I wonder how your performance would compare if you wrote that code (the production code I mean) in C++ rather than C. C is missing all those features, whereas in C++ you can get most of them using the appropriate library. Lots of C++ libraries have hashes (I like Qt's implementation personally), and it also has autovivification.

One big factor, here, however, is how similar the language is to ones you already know.

For instance, if you already are well-versed in C and C++, looking at some D or Rust code probably isn't going to be hard for you. However, looking at something in Haskell or Lisp is. A lot of languages these days are very C-like and either imperative or object-oriented (in an imperative way), so to me it's really rather trivial to learn them; it's just a matter of learning what's different. But if you start looking at languages which are really different from ones you know, then it becomes much more challenging. Looking at one with syntax unlike C will be one factor (like with Python), but looking at something entirely different like a functional language will be even harder.

Sounds a lot like Edison: a great intuitive grasp of mechanical things, but poor math ability so unable to analyze things that way.

The theory also gives you the tools necessary to refine your designs so that you can build something better without having to resort to so much trial-and-error.

It was cool that Faraday was able to build some primitive electric engines for demonstration purposes in his day, but with Maxwell's theories, Tesla was able to build far better electric engines which had significant real-world applications (Tesla's generators were used for power plants).

The invention of teleporters isn't going to suddenly make work obsolete.

Someone still has to build and maintain the teleporters, for instance.

For instance why bother having Starfleet at all if you can teleport instantly by belt-buckle to the Klingon homeworld?

Exactly, which is why JJ Abram's new movies don't make any sense at all.