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APT Rust requirement raises questions

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21–30 of 508 posts

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#22
post #3

Interesting how instead of embracing Rust as a required toolchain for APT, the conversation quickly devolved into "why don't we just build a tool that can translate memory-safe Rust code into memory-unsafe C code? Then we don't have to do anything." This feels like swimming upstream just for spite.

All compilers do anyways is translate from one language specification to another. There's nothing magical about Rust or any specific architecture target. The compiler of a "memory safe" language like Rust could easily output assembly with severe issues in the presence of a compiler bug. There's no difference between compiling to assembly vs. C in that regard.

The assumption here is that there exists an unambiguous C representation for all LLVM IR bitcode emitted by the Rust compiler.

To my knowledge, this isn’t the case.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#25
post #15
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they are just really tired of having to deal with people who constantly object and throw every possible obstacle they can on the way.

Maybe they wouldn't experience so much pushback if they were more humble, had more respect for established software and practices, and were more open to discussion. You can't go around screaming "your code SUCKS and you need to rewrite it my way NOW" at everyone all the time and expect people to not react negatively.

That’s also not something anybody has actually said.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#26
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that rust is being shoved in pointless places with a rewrite-everything-in-rust mentality. There's lunatics that want to replace basic Unix tools like sudo, etc, that are battle tested since ages which has been a mess of bugs till now. Instead Rust should find it's niches beyond rewriting what works, but tackling what doesn't.

Converting parsers to Rust is not "pointless". Doing string manipulation in C is both an awful experience and also extremely fertile ground for serious issues.

Issues that are battle tested from ages.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#27
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll experience some pushback on the assertion that that particular quote has a lot of arrogance or disdain in it. Building large legacy projects can be difficult and tapping into a thriving ecosystem of packages might be a good thing. But it's also possible to have "shiny object" or "grass is greener" syndrome.

> I think you'll experience some pushback on the assertion that that particular quote has a lot of arrogance or disdain in it. It's just a roundabout way of saying "anything that isn't running Rust isn't a REAL computer". Which is pretty clearly an arrogant statement, I don't see any other way of interpreting it.

Be real for a second. People are arguing against Rust because it supports fewer target architectures than GCC. Which of the target architectures do you believe if important enough that it should decide the future development of apt?

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#28
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they wouldn't experience so much pushback if they were more humble, had more respect for established software and practices, and were more open to discussion. You can't go around screaming "your code SUCKS and you need to rewrite it my way NOW" at everyone all the time and expect people to not react negatively.

The endless crusades are indeed tiresome.

Yes, the immediate and endless backlash we get whenever anybody says the word "Rust" is quite tiresome.

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#29
post #3

Interesting how instead of embracing Rust as a required toolchain for APT, the conversation quickly devolved into "why don't we just build a tool that can translate memory-safe Rust code into memory-unsafe C code? Then we don't have to do anything." This feels like swimming upstream just for spite.

The problem is that rust is being shoved in pointless places with a rewrite-everything-in-rust mentality. There's lunatics that want to replace basic Unix tools like sudo, etc, that are battle tested since ages which has been a mess of bugs till now. Instead Rust should find it's niches beyond rewriting what works, but tackling what doesn't.

sudo is not fully battle tested, even today. You just don't really see the CVEs getting press.

https://www.oligo.security/blog/new-sudo-vulnerabilities-cve...

Re: APT Rust requirement raises questions

#30
post #15
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they are just really tired of having to deal with people who constantly object and throw every possible obstacle they can on the way.

Maybe they wouldn't experience so much pushback if they were more humble, had more respect for established software and practices, and were more open to discussion. You can't go around screaming "your code SUCKS and you need to rewrite it my way NOW" at everyone all the time and expect people to not react negatively.

To be clear, the "you" and "my" in your sentence refer to the same person. Julian appears to be the APT maintainer, so there's no compulsion except what he applies to himself.

(Maybe you mean this in some general sense, but the actual situation at hand doesn't remotely resemble a hostile unaffiliated demand against a project.)

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