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The Hare programming language

harelang.org

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Re: The Hare programming language

#31

Post by triyambakam »

ddevault wrote: post #6
Isinlor wrote: post #3

I don't see any explanation of why this language exists. Does it do something better than any other language?

It's difficult to compare Hare to every other language project at once, but the rationale is ultimately the same: we think we can fill different niches than the others. If I were to speak generally about Hare compared to other efforts, I would focus on its simplicity and stability goals. It's the only new language in this space that's arguably simpler than C, in my opinion, and the goal is to provide a small, stable…

Could you share any of your thoughts on comparing Hare to Zig? Zig seems to have the most similar goals to Hare but I think Zig is already quite complicated.

Re: The Hare programming language

#32

Post by ddevault »

triyambakam wrote: post #31
ddevault wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to compare Hare to every other language project at once, but the rationale is ultimately the same: we think we can fill different niches than the others. If I were to speak generally about Hare compared to other efforts, I would focus on its simplicity and stability goals. It's the only new language in this space that's arguably simpler than C, in my opinion, and the goal is to provide a small, stable…

Could you share any of your thoughts on comparing Hare to Zig? Zig seems to have the most similar goals to Hare but I think Zig is already quite complicated.

Hare is much simpler than Zig. The Hare compiler is 1/10th the size of the Zig compiler. The standard libraries, which I reckon are pretty comparable in terms of features, are again separated by an order of magnitude in size. Zig is also (presently) based on LLVM, which heaps on another huge pile of complexity, whereas Hare is based on qbe: 13,000 lines of C89. Bootstrapping Hare is also significantly easier and much faster than Zig.

Hare's design is a lot different from Zig's as well. Hare lacks comptime and generics, and does not target non-free platforms like Windows and macOS.

However, the target audience and supported use-cases for the two languages is similar. It mostly comes down to a matter of preference for most people.

Re: The Hare programming language

#33

Post by vladharbuz »

staticassertion wrote: post #27
vladharbuz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can sort of understand where you're coming from — manual memory management can be difficult, and doing it improperly can cause bugs. However, in my experience, we're very far from having a magical solution for memory management. C++ definitely isn't it, and while Rust does bring significant advances in this field, it's a very large and complicated language. Unfortunately, the memory management strategy of every oth…

I hear you, but I think the problem is that you're framing this as "I, the developer, don't want to accept these costs". And that's fine when the software doesn't leave your system. The problem is that you're them pushing other costs onto your users ie: exploitable software. So from the developer perspective, great, it works for you, but the cost is there. I'm sympathetic to not wanting to use the other languages ava…

I think I understand your view better now. Are you aware of any current memory management strategies (implemented as part of a language or otherwise) that perform well in situations with high performance requirements? For example, as someone who works on video games and real-time audio, most options seem non-starters to me aside from Rust, even if I decided to make sacrifices for the sake of security, and I at least have the impression I've explored this space quite a bit. Anyway, I would be happy to learn more about minimal memory safety strategies that don't require massive scaffolding and also allow for high-performance situations.

Re: The Hare programming language

#34

Post by turminal »

staticassertion wrote: post #22
ddevault wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plans to research an optional borrow checker for Hare. Hare also does offer many "safety" advantages over C: checked slice and array access, exhaustive switch and match, nullable pointer types, less undefined behavior, no strict pointer aliasing, fewer aggressive optimizations, and so on. Hare code is much less likely to have these errors when compared to C code. I would ultimately just come out and say tha…

I think a section on safety might be worthwhile. For example, Zig pretty clearly states that it wants to focus on spatial memory safety, which it sounds like Hare is going for as well. That's certainly an improvement and worth noting, although it obviously leaves temporal safety on the table. > but the argument that we're morally in the wrong to prefer another approach is not really appreciated. Well, sorry to hear i…

> I think developers should feel a lot more responsibility in this area.

I think most programmers would agree with that sentiment. Getting everyone to agree on what is "responsible" and what isn't however...

Hare is a manifestation of the belief that in order to develop responsibly, one has to keep their software, and their code, simple.

An example of what I mean by this: An important feature of Rust is the use of complex compiler features in order to facilitate development of multithreaded programs and ensure temporal safety. In Hare programmers are encouraged to keep their software single threaded, because despite features like Rust's, concurrent programs turn out much more complex to write and maintain than sequential ones.

Keeping software single-threaded also eliminates many ways in which a program could fail due to lack of compiler enforced temporal safety.

Re: The Hare programming language

#35

Post by ddevault »

staticassertion wrote: post #30
ddevault wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really want to engage with the RESF. We have the level of safety that we feel is appropriate. Believe me, we do feel responsible for quality, working code: but we take responsibility for it personally, as programmers, and culturally, as a community, and let the language help us: not mandate us. Give us some time to see how Hare actually performs in the wild before making your judgements, okay?

I'm a security professional, and I'm speaking as a security professional, not as an evangelist for any language's approach. > Give us some time to see how Hare actually performs in the wild before making your judgements, okay? I'm certainly very curious to see how the approach plays out, but only intellectually so. As a security professional I already strongly suspect that improvements in spatial safety won't be suff…

I am not a security maximalist: I will not pursue it at the expense of everything else. There is a trend among security professionals, as it were, to place anything on the chopping block in the name of security. I find this is often counter-productive, since the #1 way to improve security is to reduce complexity, which many approaches (e.g. Rust) fail at. Security is one factor which Hare balances with the rest, and I refuse to accept a doom-and-gloom the-cancer-which-is-killing-software perspective on this approach.

Re: The Hare programming language

#36

Post by joeberon »

staticassertion wrote: post #19

lol my other post got flagged, so let me reiterate perhaps in a less inflammatory way. It is disappointing to see that "trust the programmer" is a design goal. Programmers can not be trusted with manual memory management. We have decades of proof, billions and billions of dollars of bug fixes and mitigation investments, real world damages, etc. Building a language like this and saying you hope it will be the foundati…

I agree. It is quite clear that it is impossible to write large code bases safely with manual memory management. Even very small programs often have massive problems. I think many programmers are simply in denial about this.

Re: The Hare programming language

#37

Post by staticassertion »

vladharbuz wrote: post #33
staticassertion wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you, but I think the problem is that you're framing this as "I, the developer, don't want to accept these costs". And that's fine when the software doesn't leave your system. The problem is that you're them pushing other costs onto your users ie: exploitable software. So from the developer perspective, great, it works for you, but the cost is there. I'm sympathetic to not wanting to use the other languages ava…

I think I understand your view better now. Are you aware of any current memory management strategies (implemented as part of a language or otherwise) that perform well in situations with high performance requirements? For example, as someone who works on video games and real-time audio, most options seem non-starters to me aside from Rust, even if I decided to make sacrifices for the sake of security, and I at least…

Not in mainstream languages. There's a lot of ongoing research in the space. Otherwise, Rust is probably the most mainstream language that achieves your goals.

Games are a bit different imo. While they're often networked they tend to not get attacked the same way as other software for a variety of reasons (though some games become so popular that it becomes worthwhile, like Minecraft). If a language set out to be "safer" (ie: improve temporal safety) but still prioritized performance, and emphasized its use case as being gaming, or explicitly for non-security-sensitive use cases, I'd be a lot more onboard with that. Jai seems to be driving towards that.

My issue with Hare is that it's presented (both on its page and in this HN thread) as being a language for general systems work.

Re: The Hare programming language

#38

Post by duckerude »

I don't know if the world needs this language, but I'm glad it exists. There's a real charm to C's straightforwardness. It deserves to be expressed without broken array handling and a clunky preprocessor and overzealous UB and so on.

I use Rust and like it well enough but it's amazing that its amount of complexity can work at all. It's healthy to have a counterpoint that stays clear even of generics.

Re: The Hare programming language

#39

Post by staticassertion »

ddevault wrote: post #35
staticassertion wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a security professional, and I'm speaking as a security professional, not as an evangelist for any language's approach. > Give us some time to see how Hare actually performs in the wild before making your judgements, okay? I'm certainly very curious to see how the approach plays out, but only intellectually so. As a security professional I already strongly suspect that improvements in spatial safety won't be suff…

I am not a security maximalist: I will not pursue it at the expense of everything else. There is a trend among security professionals , as it were, to place anything on the chopping block in the name of security. I find this is often counter-productive, since the #1 way to improve security is to reduce complexity, which many approaches (e.g. Rust) fail at. Security is one factor which Hare balances with the rest, and…

You can paint me as an overdramatic security person all you like, but it's really quite the opposite. I'd just like developers to think more about reducing harm to users.

> to place anything on the chopping block in the name of security.

Straw man argument. I absolutely am not a "security maximalist", nor am I unwilling to make tradeoffs - any competent security professional makes them all the time.

> the #1 way to improve security is to reduce complexity

Not really, no. Even if "complexity" were a defined term I don't think you'd be able to support this. Python's pickle makes things really simple - you just dump an object out, and you can load it up again later. Would you call that secure? It's a rhetorical question, to be clear, I'm not interested in debate on this.

> I refuse to accept a doom-and-gloom the-cancer-which-is-killing-software perspective on this approach

OK. I commented publicly that I believe developers should care more about harm to users. You can do with that what you like.

Let's end it here? I don't think we're going to agree on much.

Re: The Hare programming language

#40

Post by vladharbuz »

staticassertion wrote: post #37
vladharbuz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I understand your view better now. Are you aware of any current memory management strategies (implemented as part of a language or otherwise) that perform well in situations with high performance requirements? For example, as someone who works on video games and real-time audio, most options seem non-starters to me aside from Rust, even if I decided to make sacrifices for the sake of security, and I at least…

Not in mainstream languages. There's a lot of ongoing research in the space. Otherwise, Rust is probably the most mainstream language that achieves your goals. Games are a bit different imo. While they're often networked they tend to not get attacked the same way as other software for a variety of reasons (though some games become so popular that it becomes worthwhile, like Minecraft). If a language set out to be "sa…

Thank you for all of your feedback, I hope you end up at least trying Hare for the use cases that feel right to you! :)
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