It's because they wanted to hack control flow functionality into expressions. Returning None is actually returning something, but never is just a placeholder for any type when they want to do things that may exit the expression entirely. This is an example in the docs

let num: u32 = match get_a_number() {
    Some(num) => num,
    None => break,
};

Break exits the expression without ever producing a value.

This is an unfortunate wart to appease a desire to those that want to be able to write code like they do in legacy languages. There should have been better ways to do this without being a hack IMO

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think you're misunderstanding the never type. The never type is not a hack at all. It's a very natural part of the type system. Just as you have the unit type (), which is the canonical type with only 1 value, you also have the never type, the canonical type with 0 values.

This is extremely useful in generic code. See my other comment in this thread.

This is an unfortunate wart to appease a desire to those that want to be able to write code like they do in legacy languages

What do you mean with this? I can't really decipher it. What alternative to the never type would you want?