Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#101

Post by dpbriggs » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:13 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #64

damian_brody wrote: post #28

In Canada you cannot call a software developer engineer unless he/she is an actual engineer

My last job in Canada the other Engineers got uppity about that with me. I studied a degree called "Software Engineering", that was 4 years with first class honors. It is accredited by, and I'm a member of the Australian Institute of Engineers. The only way for me to get accredited in Canada it 2 years of relevant work experience with an accredited Engineer in my field. There are no Software Engineers in Canada.

Uh, there's an entire software engineering program at the University of Waterloo: https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/programs/software-engin...

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#102

Post by steveklabnik » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

danudey wrote: post #97

codr7 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It said Rust and/or C though, and I imagine learning Rust is pretty easy compared to C from what I've seen.

Arguably not. Rust has a lot of things that C doesn't, like classes, lifetimes, and the borrow checker, which can be jarring to deal with for programmers used to other languages. And, unlike most other languages I've seen, you can't just sit down and write a "bad" Rust program and then refine your abilities; the compiler won't let you do the "bad" things, so you have to get everything write from the word go.

Rust does not have classes.

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#103

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:19 AM UTC

shoulderfake wrote: post #71

seanmccann wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hometown. From what I heard, an engineer wanted to move home and started a small remote office there. I think the office is moving to Edmonton.

Who da hell wants to move BACK to Edmonton ?

I'd consider moving back there for this job, I like Edmonton, I have many friends there still, and my family is there. And I like Rust. But I don't like the current provincial gov't and I'd have a hard time convincing my wife to leave her family behind here.

Edmonton has awful winters, but it has a beautiful river valley, decent arts scene, and good local culture. Summers are nice there. I hated much about it when I lived there in my teens and early 20s but enjoy going back to visit now.

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#104

Post by google234123 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

Converting code seems like an incredibly boring job.

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#105

Post by codr7 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:26 AM UTC

danudey wrote: post #97

codr7 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It said Rust and/or C though, and I imagine learning Rust is pretty easy compared to C from what I've seen.

Arguably not. Rust has a lot of things that C doesn't, like classes, lifetimes, and the borrow checker, which can be jarring to deal with for programmers used to other languages. And, unlike most other languages I've seen, you can't just sit down and write a "bad" Rust program and then refine your abilities; the compiler won't let you do the "bad" things, so you have to get everything write from the word go.

From what I understand Rust makes many things explicit that are implicit in other languages. You always have to deal with lifetimes one way or the other.

Which is why I think it would be easier to learn, you get immediate feedback.

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#106

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:34 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #64

damian_brody wrote: post #28

In Canada you cannot call a software developer engineer unless he/she is an actual engineer

My last job in Canada the other Engineers got uppity about that with me. I studied a degree called "Software Engineering", that was 4 years with first class honors. It is accredited by, and I'm a member of the Australian Institute of Engineers. The only way for me to get accredited in Canada it 2 years of relevant work experience with an accredited Engineer in my field. There are no Software Engineers in Canada.

Not sure why this topic is getting downvoted to oblivion.

The entire Google Canada workforce just had our titles changed from 'software engineer' to 'software developer' and were asked to update linkedin profiles to reflect this, as well.

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#107

Post by staplers » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:35 AM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #94

halite wrote: post #54

As a human of color, don't think I could live in this town but maybe team is really fun. Interesting to see a Camrose here! I've driven by numerous times. Feel free to ask any questions about Alberta.

> As a human of color, don't think I could live in this town Are you saying it's a racist town, or yourself objecting to its current demographic?

Not OP, but I would imagine being one of the only minorities in a town like that is difficult if you just want a nonchalant life.

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#108

Post by softwarejosh » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:45 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #56

BubRoss wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If rust still has people talking about missing C++ for faster compile times I don't think anything has solidified yet.

It hasn't solidified for the same reason that C++ in many ways still hasn't solidified. Software is a very young industry by many standards and we still haven't found the best way to make it. Rust is one way to do it, but there are many others besides, in the end which tool wins out is less important than that we make some progress and get out of the tar-pit that we've been stuck in for the last two decades. All we s…

idk man, people can dish out complicated, hard tested, reliable systems in a really short time. most aspects of most languages have been severely altered and improved...

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#109

Post by softwarejosh » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #75

thedance wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reduce it how? By deploying expensive, unreliable, and hard-to-manage vendor crypto garbage? That is undoubtedly not a trade that a Google would make.

You reduce it by using custom routing ASICs that can handle orders of magnitude more traffic than a CPU with equal or lower power consumption. To put things into perspective: Cisco’s latest routing ASIC — the Cisco Silicon One — can handle 10.8 Tbps (in fixed mode). I’m sure Google and others have evaluated this, but it’s just kind of surprising that they opt to do per-packet processing in software. Disclaimer: I wri…

Theyre google, they are totally down with a 1% trade for flexible and maintainable systems.

Re: Apple is looking for engineers to convert its code from C to Rust

#110

Post by rawrfml » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:53 AM UTC

dpbriggs wrote: post #101

grecy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My last job in Canada the other Engineers got uppity about that with me. I studied a degree called "Software Engineering", that was 4 years with first class honors. It is accredited by, and I'm a member of the Australian Institute of Engineers. The only way for me to get accredited in Canada it 2 years of relevant work experience with an accredited Engineer in my field. There are no Software Engineers in Canada.

Uh, there's an entire software engineering program at the University of Waterloo: https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/programs/software-engin...

Just throwing some info out there since I graduated from this exact program. We may graduate with an engineering degree, but we technically cannot use the word engineer in our title (in Canada) until we get our accreditations, which require a couple years working in Canada under a somebody else with their P.Eng license.

The vast majority of us (definitely > 90% of my class) have moved to the US after graduation where we pretty much can use whatever role we want (eg. my official title is software engineer at my company), but from what I know of the few people left in Canada, their roles are officially "programmer" or "developer". I've actually heard stories of P.Engs on messaging people in my program on LinkedIn to change their job titles to not include the word engineer. I'm not really sure what the repercussions are.