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“Rust is safe” is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety

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Re: “Rust is safe” is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety

#91

Post by wtallis »

dijit wrote: post #62
KMnO4 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EFI is read, but not frequently written.

I'm not sure why that's relevant. It will be written to on every kernel update and every initramfs update at least, which is what.. once a week on average? A reply like yours is not so subtly indicating that "it's fine to panic all the time because ultimately you might be fine if you get a panic", which I fundamentally disagree with, other concerns aside. Also you're suggesting that journaling filesystems are perfect…

> It will be written to on every kernel update and every initramfs update at least, which is what.. once a week on average?

Which distros actually use the EFI System Partition that way? I've usually only seen the ESP used to hold the bootloader itself, with kernels and initramfs and the bootloader config pointing to them stored either in a separate /boot partition or in a /boot directory of the / filesystem.

Re: “Rust is safe” is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety

#93

Post by ChrisSD »

jmillikin wrote: post #81

As usual HN comments react to the headline, without reading the content. A lot of modern userspace code, including Rust code in the standard library, thinks that invariant failures (AKA "programmer errors") should cause some sort of assertion failure or crash (Rust or Go `panic`, C/C++ `assert`, etc). In the kernel, claims Linus, failing loudly is worse than trying to keep going because failing would also kill the fa…

That's all very well but the Rust-in-Linux advocates are advocating for #2 and fully agree with Linus on #1. So attacking #1 is attacking straw.

Re: “Rust is safe” is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety

#95

Post by lucasyvas »

flohofwoe wrote: post #85
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #49

I’ve been using Rust for a while, and I’m so, so tired of hearing this argument. Yes, we know. We get it. Rust is not an absolute guarantee of safety and doesn’t protect us from all the bugs. This is obvious and well-known to anyone actually using Rust. At this point, the argument feels like some sort of ideological debate happening outside the realm of actually getting work done. It feels like any time someone says…

> Rust is not an absolute guarantee of safety and doesn’t protect us from all the bugs. That's not exactly the vibe I'm getting from the typical Rust fanboys popping up whenever there's another CVE caused by the usage of C or C++ though ;) Rust does seem to attract the same sort of insufferable personalities that have been so typical for C++ in the past. Why that is, I have no idea.

It protects against the leading 70 percent of CVEs, which are due to memory safety issues. This is all Rust has ever claimed to solve and it's all I've ever seen anyone cite when advocating for it.

If these people are insufferable to you, that I can't change your mind on. That said you might want to get used to it since major areas of industry are already considering C/C++ as deprecated (a paraphrasing from the Azure CTO recently)

Re: “Rust is safe” is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety

#97

Post by ectopod »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #58
zo1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's probably not the place for you, or people with thin skin that don't want to deal with that kind of tone/communication. If they lose out on talent because of it, that's their loss. Not every project has to be perfect and all-inclusive to the entire world of developers, and I'm okay with that.

It’s crazy to think that advocating for reasonable, non-toxic people to work with receives this kind response. Inclusivity and non-hostile work environments should not be considered “perfect” and “all-inclusive”. They should be basic . The default . The lowest bar possible .

Which is worse?

a) Having poor communication skills.

b) Describing people as toxic.

Re: “Rust is safe” is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety

#98

Post by curt15 »

rat9988 wrote: post #4

I am the only one who would have a hard time to collaborate on a project where the "collaborators" start their message with > You need to realize that > (a) reality trumps fantasy ?

Seems pretty mild to me. Where is the personal attack?

Re: “Rust is safe” is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety

#99

Post by layer8 »

jmillikin wrote: post #81

As usual HN comments react to the headline, without reading the content. A lot of modern userspace code, including Rust code in the standard library, thinks that invariant failures (AKA "programmer errors") should cause some sort of assertion failure or crash (Rust or Go `panic`, C/C++ `assert`, etc). In the kernel, claims Linus, failing loudly is worse than trying to keep going because failing would also kill the fa…

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but Rust also has no built-in mechanism to statically determine “this code won’t ever panic”, and thus with regards to Linux kernel requirements isn’t safer in that aspect than C. To the contrary, Rust is arguably less safe in that aspect than C, due to the general Rust practice of panicking upon unexpected conditions.

Re: “Rust is safe” is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety

#100

Post by Test0129 »

flohofwoe wrote: post #85
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #49

I’ve been using Rust for a while, and I’m so, so tired of hearing this argument. Yes, we know. We get it. Rust is not an absolute guarantee of safety and doesn’t protect us from all the bugs. This is obvious and well-known to anyone actually using Rust. At this point, the argument feels like some sort of ideological debate happening outside the realm of actually getting work done. It feels like any time someone says…

> Rust is not an absolute guarantee of safety and doesn’t protect us from all the bugs. That's not exactly the vibe I'm getting from the typical Rust fanboys popping up whenever there's another CVE caused by the usage of C or C++ though ;) Rust does seem to attract the same sort of insufferable personalities that have been so typical for C++ in the past. Why that is, I have no idea.

I wouldn't say the Rust community parallels the C++ community in any way. The rust community is more like the insufferable Haskell/FP community who, despite producing very little measurable commercial value continue to look down on everyone else.

Indeed, there's a lot of damage control going on in this thread walking back Rust's guarantees of safety despite that, up until this point, being Rust's only real selling point. It seems like every C/C++/Go/whatever repository has at least one issue suggesting a complete rewrite in Rust.

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