this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
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I thought the rust compiler was supposed to be polite and helpful (unlike gcc, or nix).
It is, this meme is just trash.
Oh god nix output
You create a new file and don't check it into git yet.
Nix commands: "I've never met this file in my life!"
gcc was unhelpful a couple decades ago. I've found it to be rather helpful in recent years.
Yeah, recent versions of GCC have gotten a lot better. I suspect it’s actually because of languages like Rust raising the bar.
No, Rust came later.
they didn't say otherwise
They literally did. They theorized that Rust influenced GCC's improved error messaging. That could not have happened if GCC improved their error messaging prior to the existence of Rust.
But GCC did not improve their error messages (much) prior to Rust, despite Clang's error messages comparing favorably to GCC even before Rust 1.0 was released, as for example discussed in
https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/ClangDiagnosticsComparison?action=recall&rev=1
Rust itself is 14 years old, slightly older than above wiki page, and even back then it had great error messages, though they've also improved since. Here's a fun site where you can see how error messages have evolved through Rust's life:
https://kobzol.github.io/rust/rustc/2025/05/16/evolution-of-rustc-errors.html
It's only very recently that GCC has started to catch up, for example with some nice improvements in GCC 15:
https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2025/04/10/6-usability-improvements-gcc-15
Oh, guess my mental timeline is wrong!
no they didn't, yes it could have happened:
gcc is not a dead project. it is continuously maintained. its improvements can be influenced by other projects like rust
I know that gcc is still alive. That was implied from my original comment.
What you just outlined is the other commenter's theory I already outlined, and literally describes Rust not coming along after gcc improves its error messaging. Thus, it contradicts my theory that Rust came along later than gcc's improved error messaging.