1. It absolutely had to run in the browser.
2. I wanted the option of shipping native binaries later on, e.g. screensavers
This narrows the choice to something that can compile to WASM and has bindings for WebGL/OpenGL. Rust has substantial support for these technologies, there's an active graphics community, and, personally, it felt approachable for someone without experience with C/C++.
Also, I write Haskell/Elm for a living. I don't need much convincing to pick up another typed, memory-safe language.
Comments
I had 2 requirements starting out:
1. It absolutely had to run in the browser. 2. I wanted the option of shipping native binaries later on, e.g. screensavers
This narrows the choice to something that can compile to WASM and has bindings for WebGL/OpenGL. Rust has substantial support for these technologies, there's an active graphics community, and, personally, it felt approachable for someone without experience with C/C++.
Also, I write Haskell/Elm for a living. I don't need much convincing to pick up another typed, memory-safe language.