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Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

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Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#331

Post by thatfunkymunki »

Manishearth wrote: post #319
HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds and seems like a language worthy of more investigation on my part, but I have to agree that the militant, presumptive attacks on any language besides their Chosen One has left a bad taste in my mouth. This 100 times over. It's a language that seems novel and strong enough to stand on its own merits - but there's a section of the community that makes me want to stay away. I wish they'd spend less effort re-w…

> I wish they'd spend less effort re-writing already working tools in C and more effort writing new, better tools. Is this really a thing? Folks keep pointing out this bugbear of folks going out and asking projects to rewrite in Rust and ... there aren't that many examples of this. If anything most of the more famous Rust projects (ripgrep, redox, etc) are clean-slate.

http://transitiontech.ca/random/RIIR this phenomenon has been documented

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#332

Post by npsimons »

ansible wrote: post #326
zaarn wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still plenty of 32bit machines out there. I personally have maintained and support a Intel 4004 knockoff used for controlling a big industrial machine. And of course more modern variants of the same machine with an 8008. Some of these couldn't even run DOS but it's still supported. 32bit is not even close to be being that old and lots of machines, applications or platforms require it and they need maintenan…

Oh, I wasn't implying that OBSD or NBSD should adopt Rust as a development language. Not at all. My point is more that I wouldn't want the Rust developers to spend time on making it able to self-host on 32-bit platforms. I'd prefer they spend their time elsewhere, that's all.

> I'd prefer they spend their time elsewhere, that's all.

And I'm sure the OpenBSD developers would prefer to spend their time on OpenBSD instead of working around Rust's lack of support for a platform that OpenBSD supports. I'm still kind of surprised that when the question of "why doesn't OpenBSD switch to Rust?" and the answer was "because Rust doesn't self host on a platform we support" that the response has been "well drop that platform." How about: no. How about: if someone wants Rust to be a viable option, then they have to adjust Rust to be a viable option, not ask other projects to massively constrain their currently working support of a platform.

I hate to sound like the old geezer, but I get the impression that many people here have no clue about software beyond desktop and mobile. It's like they don't even realize that firmware and operating systems have to be written and maintained on older hardware. There is a lot of software out there running on legacy hardware that the world depends upon which you never see.

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#333

Post by npsimons »

empath75 wrote: post #257
rtpg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a bit of a trite point unless many rust developers are actually working inside i386. Though the compiler itself might not work very well in i386. Not many people are whining about our C compiler toolchains not fitting into our microcontrollers.

It’s not a trite point for BSD but if those are the kinds of objections holding back adoption by Linux and bsd, then I think the end result will just be a new Rust-first operating system.

> It’s not a trite point for BSD but if those are the kinds of objections holding back adoption by Linux and bsd, then I think the end result will just be a new Rust-first operating system.

That would be great! Get back to me when it exists, instead of trying to dissuade an already established project from one of it's primary goals and handwaving said goals as "outdated" and "unimportant". Heck, it's open source, so if someone feels like it, they can just fork and go hog wild!

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#334

Post by npsimons »

steveklabnik wrote: post #118
progman wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think bootstrap with OCaml is ok - if just bootstrap from source becomes possible at all. Binary-only dependency is awful when Rust is wanted on yet unsupported systems.

It's not a significant issue if you can accept cross-compiling. This is how most platforms get their start.

> This is how most platforms get their start.

The key word here is 'start'. I don't like to arbitrarily constrain tools, but I've always felt that cross-compilers were sort of a last resort, ie, you don't have a native compiler (you're writing the compiler or operating system), or are really pressed for time. Once you've got a native compiler, that should be it: self-hosted from there on.

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#335

Post by [deleted] »

thatfunkymunki wrote: post #331
Manishearth wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish they'd spend less effort re-writing already working tools in C and more effort writing new, better tools. Is this really a thing? Folks keep pointing out this bugbear of folks going out and asking projects to rewrite in Rust and ... there aren't that many examples of this. If anything most of the more famous Rust projects (ripgrep, redox, etc) are clean-slate.

http://transitiontech.ca/random/RIIR this phenomenon has been documented

[deleted]

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#336

Post by ernst_klim »

oscargrouch wrote: post #327
pcwalton wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And by the way, modern C++ is already secure enough, making some selling points for Rust, a little bit of cosmetic right now. There is not a single large-scale network-facing widely attacked piece of software I'm aware of in C++ that has not fallen to some memory safety problem. Memory safety issues frequently produce RCE.

> And by the way, modern C++ is already secure enough, making some selling points for Rust, a little bit of cosmetic right now. Sorry. In hindsight, and out of the context like this, i think i picked up harsher words than i should. I dont meant to be disrespectful to all the great and valuable work that is going on the Rust community. > There is not a single large-scale network-facing widely attacked piece of softwar…

>No doubt. But lets not forget that a lang like C++ needed to evolve while still working, so how much of those security issues are there given the use of ancient code practices of the past? software coded in the 90's even the 80's

But C++ was a mess from the very beginning, many of its problems are inherited from C, and the language itself was an ugly extension to C, not a carefully elaborated new language. So most new features were introduced to repair the breaches of such messy design.

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#337

Post by rurban »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #205
teilo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find most of the programming/lang/framework subreddits intolerable. I dip into those waters occasionally, but unsub pretty quick. Too many egos, trolls, asshats, and too much noise. There are notable exceptions, like /r/elixir. But I abandoned /r/python and /r/django months ago, and won't be back. I'm an adult, and prefer to discuss things those who will show at least a modicum of respect to others.

The flipside of that is - I'm an adult, I want to talk to people who can handle critiques and debate without getting unduly upset. Disagreement != trolling.

So why is everytime I point out the glaring problems of rust, which are mentioned in their docs and contradict their marketing hypes are always downvoted into oblivion? Nobody ever dated to check out the docs and issues. I mean claiming memory safety with an unsafe keyword and refounting, and deadlocking concurrency with manually required mutexes called "fearless concurrency" whilst having no idea about actual concepts solving those problems.

Pure fanboyism. Better than C yes, but not better and much slower and unsafer than ATS or Pony.

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#338

Post by [deleted] »

vvanders wrote: post #286
stochastic_monk wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is when it's not just binding: it's actually using metaprogramming, which is a huge part of why I use C++. There's no equivalent to blaze or eigen for linear algebra in Rust, and much of that heavy lifting is handled by templates. (There are some libraries with rudimental expression template-like behavior, but nothing as sophisticated.)

That's probably where you and I differ, I don't see metaprogramming as a plus. More often then not it tends to lead to some long compile times(which is why boost never sees the light of day in any codebase I work in). I'll also counter that having worked in a fairly math heavy 3D graphics space I've never needed them, although our requirements may be different.

[deleted]

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#339

Post by littlestymaar »

oscargrouch wrote: post #322
vvanders wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this in the most non-confrontational way: have you actually used/looked at Rust? The reason I ask is just about every item you laid out I've had the opposite experience. Talking with C/C++ is trivial with bindgen and clang. Embedding in C++ is likewise straightforward. I mean Firefox is one of the larger C++ codebases out there. The package manager is great and makes dropping in things much less painful. On th…

> I mean this in the most non-confrontational way: have you actually used/looked at Rust? I follow Rust since Graydon Hoare's initial vision for it. Which i love it when it first came out. The garbage collected Rust had so much potential, in my point of view. Then when i started to follow it, it was chaging into this current encarnation trying to chase C++, and market as a better C++. I've coded in it for a period of…

> The first Rust vision, now was re-created even more beautifully in Swift.

Had you said Poney I'd have agreed, but I don't see how Swift matches the first Rust vision (a safe concurrency model).

Re: Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

#340

Post by sanderjd »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #324
sanderjd wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your parent's response wasn't passive aggressive at all, it was a direct statement of their view of the problem with people who think the problem is other people being "thin skinned".

Really not sure how you don't see it. Mimicking my sentence structure, implying that people who talk like me are ostracised by society (!?), and using phrases like "incredibly toxic". I could almost hear the tone of voice reading that sentence.

Ok, I see how the sentence structure mirroring could be read as passive aggressive, but the rest of that is just flatly stated disagreement; there's nothing "passive" about it.
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