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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

#161

Post by mynameisvlad »

LunaSea wrote: post #108
mynameisvlad wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not “simply a matter of preference” when it causes someone else to be in a hostile work environment. At that point, you’re affecting the lives of those around you. Sure, some people have medical conditions that might prevent them from seeing this, but even they put in an effort to be better. It stops being a “preference” when it actively hurts those around you. If you are an asshole, are known to be an assho…

Aren't other people joining his project in this case?

Would it make it more ok if people were?

How many people are joining? How many people are joining because or in lieu of Linus? How many people are joining just because it’s Linux/Git/whatever (although granted that is in part due to Linus making them such big things)? How many people would have joined/wouldn’t have left if he wasn’t there?

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

#162

Post by lifthrasiir »

pornel wrote: post #102
TillE wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really common to see people say meaningless stuff like "Rust is a safe language" which is either deeply confused or deeply misleading. Rust provides certain guarantees of memory safety, which is great, but it's important to understand exactly what that means and not to oversell it.

It's an unproductive pedantry to expect every mention of the generalisation to be followed by a full disclaimer about exceptions and edge cases. People say "it's raining" without having to add "except under roofs".

I think, if the wording was exactly "Rust is safe" it is indeed too vague as there are many notions of safety, and annoyingly enough people do say this. But "Rust provides memory safety" is clear enough and doesn't need further quantification.

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

#163

Post by mustache_kimono »

kweingar wrote: post #142
mustache_kimono wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they don't go around slandering programming language communities. If we're going to be serious about who is being toxic, it's definitely Linus in this thread. Guy makes first mistake (by a very broad interpretation of "mistake". Perhaps "misunderstanding"?). Linus goes nuclear. And while his reasoning is sound, his argumentation cycles between threats, bad-faith arguments, and just plain old yelling. What so…

> At least they don't go around slandering programming language communities. Not so sure about this. I see a good amount of acrimony toward C, C++, Go, Zig, etc. from the Rust side.

I think "acrimony" among languages (not language communities) is fine, like "you don't have an Option type?" or "you don't guarantee I won't have a use after free?". I think saying the "The Go/Rust/Zig community is uniquely toxic" crosses a line. And, to be very clear, if Rust people do it, I think it's awful as well.

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

#164

Post by alerighi »

tcfhgj wrote: post #7

> Not completing the operation at all, is not really any better than getting the wrong answer, it's only more debuggable. Wouldn't be that sure about that. Getting the wrong answer can be a serious security problem. Not completing the operation... well, it is not good, but that's it.

> Not completing the operation... well, it is not good, but that's it.

Depends on what the operation is. If the operation is flying an airplane or controlling a nuclear reaction, you are sure that not completing the operation and just aborting the program is the worst outcome possible. Beside the error can crash the plane or melt down the nuclear reactor, but may also not have any effect at all, e.g. a buffer overflow overwrites a memory area that is not used for anything important.

Of course these are extreme example (for which Linux is of course out of discussion since it doesn't offer the level of safety guaranteed required), but we can make other examples.

One example could be your own PC. If you use Linux, take a look at the dmesg output and count the number of errors: there are probably a lot of them, for multiple reason. You surely want your system to continue running, and not panic on each of them!

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

#165

Post by layer8 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #126
layer8 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but Rust also has no built-in mechanism to statically determine “this code won’t ever panic”, My intuition says that's the Halting Problem, so not actually possible to implement perfectly? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33057059.

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

#166

Post by throw827474737 »

mustache_kimono wrote: post #115
sidlls wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably are, in many cases. Rust’s community, in aggregate, have developed a reputation (earned, in my opinion). It’s too bad that the community don’t follow the leaders’ example in this regard. There are some quality, level-headed Rust advocates. They appear to be the minority.

At least they don't go around slandering programming language communities. If we're going to be serious about who is being toxic, it's definitely Linus in this thread. Guy makes first mistake (by a very broad interpretation of "mistake". Perhaps "misunderstanding"?). Linus goes nuclear. And while his reasoning is sound, his argumentation cycles between threats, bad-faith arguments, and just plain old yelling. What so…

Guy makes mistake and even after that continues discussion though he already heard the agreed argument?

I'm not understanding that if Linuxrusters want to do more their own thing and get rid of those rules and discussions they just fork off a real Linuxrustkernel and go off?

The "political correct" toxicity comes from that group which continously wants to undermine long beforehand agreeds frontiers... (e.g. again this panic-is-more-safe discussion).

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

#167

Post by shepardrtc »

mustache_kimono wrote: post #115
sidlls wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably are, in many cases. Rust’s community, in aggregate, have developed a reputation (earned, in my opinion). It’s too bad that the community don’t follow the leaders’ example in this regard. There are some quality, level-headed Rust advocates. They appear to be the minority.

At least they don't go around slandering programming language communities. If we're going to be serious about who is being toxic, it's definitely Linus in this thread. Guy makes first mistake (by a very broad interpretation of "mistake". Perhaps "misunderstanding"?). Linus goes nuclear. And while his reasoning is sound, his argumentation cycles between threats, bad-faith arguments, and just plain old yelling. What so…

> Linus goes nuclear. And while his reasoning is sound, his argumentation cycles between threats, bad-faith arguments, and just plain old yelling.

In my opinion, in the software world, there is a large number of people who are very convinced of their own correctness. When they do something wrong or are simply mistaken, a gentle correction doesn't work. Linus is probably used to dealing with these people. I'm not saying the person he was replying to was necessarily doing that, but after a while you have an automatic response.

The beauty and horror of OSS is that anyone can contribute. Having someone scream "WTF are you doing???" every once in a while isn't a bad thing. It's not nice to hear that being directed at you, but sometimes in life it is necessary.

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

#168

Post by chrsig »

mustache_kimono wrote: post #115
sidlls wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably are, in many cases. Rust’s community, in aggregate, have developed a reputation (earned, in my opinion). It’s too bad that the community don’t follow the leaders’ example in this regard. There are some quality, level-headed Rust advocates. They appear to be the minority.

At least they don't go around slandering programming language communities. If we're going to be serious about who is being toxic, it's definitely Linus in this thread. Guy makes first mistake (by a very broad interpretation of "mistake". Perhaps "misunderstanding"?). Linus goes nuclear. And while his reasoning is sound, his argumentation cycles between threats, bad-faith arguments, and just plain old yelling. What so…

...this is not at all Linus going nuclear. I don't see any threats or 'yelling'. He could have been more diplomatic, and I think Linus was actually trying to be. Diplomacy isn't his strongest suit. I don't think the first comment in his reply was necessarily appropriate, because it was directed at the person rather than the problem. I can also understand not wanting to mince words and establish a very firm boundary so it doesn't become a perennial conversation.

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

#169

Post by II2II »

pornel wrote: post #102
TillE wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really common to see people say meaningless stuff like "Rust is a safe language" which is either deeply confused or deeply misleading. Rust provides certain guarantees of memory safety, which is great, but it's important to understand exactly what that means and not to oversell it.

It's an unproductive pedantry to expect every mention of the generalisation to be followed by a full disclaimer about exceptions and edge cases. People say "it's raining" without having to add "except under roofs".

Think of it as elaborating, rather than disclaiming. There is a real problem in the realm of Rust advocacy where people make a blanket claim, either wrongfully assuming it is true or assuming that others are aware of the limitations of the claim. This is a problem when the reader is not aware of the limits of what is being said, while creating conflict when the reader calls out the limitations.

Reading a book on Rust programming is an entirely different matter since authors tend to elaborate upon what they are claiming. The reader has to understand how things work and what the limits are. As such, there is less opportunity for misinformation to spread and less room for conflict.

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

#170

Post by LunaSea »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #161
LunaSea wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't other people joining his project in this case?

Would it make it more ok if people were? How many people are joining? How many people are joining because or in lieu of Linus? How many people are joining just because it’s Linux/Git/whatever (although granted that is in part due to Linus making them such big things)? How many people would have joined/wouldn’t have left if he wasn’t there?

That doesn't matter.

It is his project and people are free ton join or start their own.

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