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Rewrite Everything in Rust

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#11

Post by pcwalton »

panic wrote: post #9

I think this misses the real problem. So many pieces of foundational software like glibc and OpenSSL are understaffed, underfunded, and plagued by terrible code. Go read glibc getaddrinfo: it's a mess! Rewriting the software in Rust would not solve these problems any more than rewriting it in C++ would. A rewrite would clean up the code, sure, but then you're left in the same situation, only with brand new bugs that…

> A rewrite would clean up the code, sure, but then you're left in the same situation, only with brand new bugs that nobody has time to fix.

The entire point is that you're not in the same situation regarding memory safety problems/vulnerabilities.

Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#12

Post by reality_czech »

stcredzero wrote: post #5

If a given piece of software has been largely written using certain patterns or conventions, then it is often possible for a syntactic rewrite engine to be able to match those patterns, then output idiomatic code patterns in the target language. This may well be applicable to kernels and other constituents of an OS.

Have you even looked at the source code to glibc? It's stuffed full of macros and #ifdef hell. Not to mention symbol versioning, the use of gcc-specific compiler extensions, and ancient-UNIX-beard performance hacks. You'd have more success teaching a chimpanzee to play the violin, than automatically translating glibc into anything.

Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#13

Post by TheCoreh »

pcwalton wrote: post #10
stcredzero wrote: post #5

If a given piece of software has been largely written using certain patterns or conventions, then it is often possible for a syntactic rewrite engine to be able to match those patterns, then output idiomatic code patterns in the target language. This may well be applicable to kernels and other constituents of an OS.

Isn't that just what a compiler is, where the target language is machine code?

A compiler has more than syntax though, since it understands semantics and does a lot of checks. I think the parent comment refers to something a little more rudimentary, like a macro-based system to do a rough translation of code.

Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#14

Post by [deleted] »

pcwalton wrote: post #10
stcredzero wrote: post #5

If a given piece of software has been largely written using certain patterns or conventions, then it is often possible for a syntactic rewrite engine to be able to match those patterns, then output idiomatic code patterns in the target language. This may well be applicable to kernels and other constituents of an OS.

Isn't that just what a compiler is, where the target language is machine code?

[deleted]

Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#15

Post by [deleted] »

panic wrote: post #9

I think this misses the real problem. So many pieces of foundational software like glibc and OpenSSL are understaffed, underfunded, and plagued by terrible code. Go read glibc getaddrinfo: it's a mess! Rewriting the software in Rust would not solve these problems any more than rewriting it in C++ would. A rewrite would clean up the code, sure, but then you're left in the same situation, only with brand new bugs that…

[deleted]

Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#16

Post by sdegutis »

Off topic, but it's surprisingly refreshing to see someone put "Christian" next to their name in the same place they put "Mozilla hacker." The vast majority of programmers either aren't religious or hide it so well that you couldn't possibly tell if they were. (Not that being overt about it is better, either.) I understand that it's generally best not to talk religion in the professional workplace, but a person's own blog is a more neutral place to bring it up, so it's nice to see that here. It's also refreshing to see that there are other adult converts to Christianity in the programming world, as opposed to from it, which seems to be the norm in general but particularly in this field.

Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#17

Post by heywiseguy »

pcwalton wrote: post #10
stcredzero wrote: post #5

If a given piece of software has been largely written using certain patterns or conventions, then it is often possible for a syntactic rewrite engine to be able to match those patterns, then output idiomatic code patterns in the target language. This may well be applicable to kernels and other constituents of an OS.

Isn't that just what a compiler is, where the target language is machine code?

yeah this is like a recipe for turning an N-pass compiler into an N+1 pass compiler

Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#18

Post by rubiquity »

pcwalton wrote: post #11
panic wrote: post #9

I think this misses the real problem. So many pieces of foundational software like glibc and OpenSSL are understaffed, underfunded, and plagued by terrible code. Go read glibc getaddrinfo: it's a mess! Rewriting the software in Rust would not solve these problems any more than rewriting it in C++ would. A rewrite would clean up the code, sure, but then you're left in the same situation, only with brand new bugs that…

> A rewrite would clean up the code, sure, but then you're left in the same situation, only with brand new bugs that nobody has time to fix. The entire point is that you're not in the same situation regarding memory safety problems/vulnerabilities.

I think what GP is saying that you'll have problems in logic or other typical programming problems and that it isn't a lack of language features/safety but rather time/money being thrown at these libraries

I imagine the top two reasons unsafe memory access happen is:

1) other complicated logic seeped into the memory sensitive area or causes programmer fatigue

2) memory management is hard

Rust helps with #2 but let's not kid ourselves, what percentage of a library like glibc would be spent in unsafe blocks? Drawing attention to an unsafe area can help though.

As you can see, I'm running around in circles. Just like every discussion about this does. Until an avid Rust user puts their money where their mouth is, we're all just playing Armchair Programmer.

Re: Rewrite Everything in Rust

#20

Post by thinkpad20 »

I don't know much about glibc, but since you can call rust from C and vice versa, it seems like you could reimplement a few functions at a time, incrementally phasing out C code and replacing it with rust. Assuming, of course, that you agree with the author's thesis. This approach lets you reuse the same tests and do things like benchmarking etc to make sure the implementation is performant and compliant.
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