As someone who’s used both, I’d have a strong preference for Odin over Rust if it were at a stable 1.0 release. As it stands now (or, at least, when I used it), Odin is very much in flux. Spend enough time with the language, and you’ll either find a bug with the compiler or the semantics will change after you update.
That said, it would be my favorite without those problems. It is a really simple language in a good way. There’s no fancy language features that are just syntax sugar (well except maybe context, but I find that to be actually convenient). You can understand everything in an afternoon if you are already familiar with programming in other languages. Rust is pretty much the opposite in all of these reguards.
Rust also has the benefit of being pretty recognizable at this point, so if you say your project is in Rust then people will know what that means, unlike Odin. More “resume-able” in a way.
So, in short:
- Odin if you’re doing it as a hobby
- Rust if you want something “real”
A bunch of my friends from college kept telling me I’ve gotta play it, espectially because among them the only other game they all played was R6 Siege. I wasn’t too enthused considering all the discussion I can find of the game says it sucks now. When they eventually got me to play it I found it… ok.
Based on the demographics of those friends, I’d say it’s mostly popular among people who, if you asked them if they were really into games would say yes, but if you asked them for any “hidden gems” they’ve come across would give suggest highly recognizeable non-AAA games like Helldivers 2 or Balatro. Partly because their definition of “really into games” is that they play games that have an esports scene (even if their competitiveness goes only as far as playing in ranked matchmaking).
Sound pretentious for me to put it that way but I find that to be the pattern.