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Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

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Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#171

Post by ncmncm »

classified wrote: post #159
Animats wrote: post #43

I'm curious to see what Microsoft does. The big breakthrough with Rust was ownership, and Microsoft seems to agree on that. Rust has a lot of other baggage that could be dispensed with. Of course, Microsoft has their own baggage.

There should be no doubt about the agenda: Embrace, extend and extinguish.

That doesn't apply here, unlike with WSL.

Microsoft has a huge problem: thousands of coders who aren't disciplined enough to write reliable code. They need a language to provide the needed discipline. They tried making their own language, and now understand that they are not good enough at that, either. Rust, or a fork of Rust, might suffice.

They are not interested in displacing Rust from wherever it is being used. They just need something for their things, that their customers can also use. Lock-in is exercised farther up the chain.

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#172

Post by [deleted] »

Rotareti wrote: post #148
kerng wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what the next big language iteration will bring. It's been a while that I got excited about a new language, last time was probably C#, but that's 20 years ago... Crazy, that there hasn't been any new language revolution sort of how Java was one. But maybe I should look more into new things like Julia, but they seem a bit niche.

I hope the next big programming language will be one that is split into two language-variants: the "low-level-variant" and the "high-level-variant". The high-level-variant is a dynamic language with optional typing, which is good for scripting, fast prototyping, fast time-to-market, etc. The low-level-variant is similar to the high-level-variant (same syntax, same features mostly, same documentation), but it has no g…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#173

Post by Recurecur »

afiori wrote: post #170
Rotareti wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope the next big programming language will be one that is split into two language-variants: the "low-level-variant" and the "high-level-variant". The high-level-variant is a dynamic language with optional typing, which is good for scripting, fast prototyping, fast time-to-market, etc. The low-level-variant is similar to the high-level-variant (same syntax, same features mostly, same documentation), but it has no g…

Proponents would say that julia is both languages at the same time

Yes, and I think Julia is a perfect starting point for an extremely productive general purpose language.

The one major wart with Julia is reliance on GC, I'm interested to hear what workarounds exist. If no common usage patterns rely on the GC, it should be possible to write "recycling" code that doesn't incur GC pauses and hence, unpredictable latency.

I really enjoy using Julia, it's a great balance of concision, expressiveness, and performance.

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#174

Post by reggieband »

wvenable wrote: post #169
reggieband wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was contradicting the clearly false claim made by OP, not trying to give the nuanced portrayal from the article. The thesis of the article I posted is that Microsoft continues to be haunted by the vestiges of Gates' and Balmer's influence. I think your cherry picking of a single quote praising some positives the author provides to balance his polemic is purposefully misleading. The original argument was: "Microsoft…

Does the fact that some Microsoft employees, even those in positions of influence, remain from that time matter? Does the fact that there are new successful employees, with entirely new ideas about products and management, matter? The article demonstrates that Microsoft is a complex organization with both good and bad and is changing for the better even if it has a way to go. Supporting the good and praising Microsof…

If you are asking: "Should Microsoft get some credit for the positive things it has done" then the answer is clearly yes. Even during the time periods where Microsoft was universally (and legally) perceived to be engaged in unfair business practices my own feeling is that their overall contribution to IT was a net positive.

That does not change the fact that Microsoft is a risk. Google is a risk since they have a habit of shutting down projects. Oracle is a risk due to their insane licensing and consulting fees. Open Source is a risk since the contributors can just decided to drop support. Everything has elements of risk. I guess I just won't back down from someone claiming there is no risk in Microsoft because all the bad people are gone. That is an absurd claim that also happens to be false.

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#175

Post by wvenable »

reggieband wrote: post #174
wvenable wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the fact that some Microsoft employees, even those in positions of influence, remain from that time matter? Does the fact that there are new successful employees, with entirely new ideas about products and management, matter? The article demonstrates that Microsoft is a complex organization with both good and bad and is changing for the better even if it has a way to go. Supporting the good and praising Microsof…

If you are asking: "Should Microsoft get some credit for the positive things it has done" then the answer is clearly yes. Even during the time periods where Microsoft was universally (and legally) perceived to be engaged in unfair business practices my own feeling is that their overall contribution to IT was a net positive. That does not change the fact that Microsoft is a risk. Google is a risk since they have a hab…

That's arguing against a straw man. Nobody is claiming all the bad people are gone. But the claim that Microsoft is all bad was the source of this whole thread.

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#176

Post by reggieband »

wvenable wrote: post #175
reggieband wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are asking: "Should Microsoft get some credit for the positive things it has done" then the answer is clearly yes. Even during the time periods where Microsoft was universally (and legally) perceived to be engaged in unfair business practices my own feeling is that their overall contribution to IT was a net positive. That does not change the fact that Microsoft is a risk. Google is a risk since they have a hab…

That's arguing against a straw man. Nobody is claiming all the bad people are gone. But the claim that Microsoft is all bad was the source of this whole thread.

I am not claiming you are making that argument. I'm responding to the original poster, relevant part quoted here: "I think it’s safe to say that anyone working there today has nothing to do with the time periods you’re referencing, so I don’t know why you would consider decades old issues to be relevant today."

As demonstrated, people working during the time periods he referenced are still working for Microsoft, contrary to this claim. This also addresses why someone should consider the risk of "decades old issues" when making decisions today.

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#177

Post by KenoFischer »

Recurecur wrote: post #173
afiori wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proponents would say that julia is both languages at the same time

Yes, and I think Julia is a perfect starting point for an extremely productive general purpose language. The one major wart with Julia is reliance on GC, I'm interested to hear what workarounds exist. If no common usage patterns rely on the GC, it should be possible to write "recycling" code that doesn't incur GC pauses and hence, unpredictable latency. I really enjoy using Julia, it's a great balance of concision, e…

There is a common demand from people for extracting just a very concrete computation from a julia codebase and compiling it to a standalone library (or even just using it within an existing julia program, but guaranteeing certain allocation or real time behavior). For example, julia includes a pure julia implementation of libm, but we also maintain the openlibm C library, since we link it into some of our C dependencies that need good quality math functions. It would be nice just to compile the julia version and have it be a drop in replacement for the libm that can be linked. Of course for that you don't want the runtime, or GC or code generator. The challenge here is coming up with the right interfaces and abstractions to make this a feasible and useful thing, without splitting the community into those that care about it and those that don't. We've started some work in this direction, but it isn't really usable yet.

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#178

Post by esotericn »

JNRowe wrote: post #42
pjmlp wrote: post #22

For the hating Microsoft crowd, here are the projects where they are also using Rust, https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/?s=rust And the talks done about the internal adoption, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCB19DRw_60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o01QmYVluSw And the author from C++/WinRT is now working on Rust/WinRT. https://kennykerr.ca/2019/11/05/rust/ So lets wait a bit before going to the castle with the pitch…

As a big proponent of F# it annoys me how much one still needs to fight "but M$" arguments if I point out a thing that F# does well. The same thing seems to happen when discussing Haskell with people who know just enough to recognise the influence MSR employees have on it. It almost makes me wonder how they/we can work around that sentiment now. Either hope for generational shift to eventually kill it, or perhaps hav…

> It almost makes me wonder how they/we can work around that sentiment now.

From my perspective, the issue ultimately is - why? What do I gain from using Microsoft software?

I worked at a Microsoft shop for a short period. All of the 'new MS' stuff I've personally worked with has certainly been Windows first.

Take C#. It might work on Linux, sure, but you have stuff like the .NET runtime taking forever to start, the reliance on Visual Studio, .NET Framework isn't open source because.... why?

Or perhaps you have Microsoft Teams - for which, despite it effectively being a web app - there is no Linux client and in Firefox half the features are disabled. Even on Windows it's literally a shit version of Slack which presumably exists solely because it's bundled with other Microsoft stuff or because the name has appeal to some PHBs.

For the most part from what I can tell it's all still either Windows first, or a crap version of something else, or both. There might be some minor researchy fun bits, but anything that seems to actually see wide use is all Windows stack.

What's the point? I read the article, and it pretty much feels like they want to Windowsify Rust. Why should I care about that?

Literally everything I read about Microsoft seems to be from people who want an excuse to use Windows, or something. I want Windows to burn and die in a fire; so what is there for me?

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#179

Post by pjmlp »

hu3 wrote: post #166
pjmlp wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go would be have an interesting language in 1986 [0], or in 1995 [1]. As it stands, it is forced to follow some of Java design mistakes by not integrating modern features and then being forced to actually adopt them in a half-baked way due to market pressure, while striving not to break backwards compatibility with existing code. Modern C++ also uses GC, even it is opt-in. And several modern C++ features actually ori…

> But yeah, it suffers from having a tiny community. And feature bloat.

Being a modern language not stuck in the 60's language design is not feature bloat.

Re: Microsoft is creating a new Rust-based programming language for secure coding

#180

Post by byt143 »

KenoFischer wrote: post #177
Recurecur wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and I think Julia is a perfect starting point for an extremely productive general purpose language. The one major wart with Julia is reliance on GC, I'm interested to hear what workarounds exist. If no common usage patterns rely on the GC, it should be possible to write "recycling" code that doesn't incur GC pauses and hence, unpredictable latency. I really enjoy using Julia, it's a great balance of concision, e…

There is a common demand from people for extracting just a very concrete computation from a julia codebase and compiling it to a standalone library (or even just using it within an existing julia program, but guaranteeing certain allocation or real time behavior). For example, julia includes a pure julia implementation of libm, but we also maintain the openlibm C library, since we link it into some of our C dependenc…

This sounds amazing and exactly what people have been clamoring for. Extremely excited.

I think it will also rocket up Julia's popularity and usage not just for ML but as a general purpose language

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