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Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

ladybird.org

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Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#171

Post by staticassertion »

abuyalip wrote: post #74
christophilus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been part of at least 2 successful rewrites. I think that Joel’s post is too often taken as gospel. Sometimes a rewrite is the best way forward. Moving Ladybird from C++ to a safer more modern language is a real differentiator vs other browsers, and will probably pay dividends. Doing it now is better than doing it once ladybird is fully established. One last point about rewrites: you can look at any industry dis…

I still don’t buy this “safer more modern” mentality. Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. People need to learn how to use tools properly. If you ask me, Go is a better Rust. Rust is an ugly version of C++ with longer compile times and a band of zealous missionaries. I mean the keywords mut and fn very annoying to read just get rid of them or spell the f*n thing function.

This is a very shallow, very boring criticism. I doubt it will resonate. Modern C++ does not solve the safety issues, it has plenty of brand new footguns like string_view. Who cares if Go is better than Rust? Feel free to write Go, no one cares.

"mut and fn very annoying to read" like okay lol who cares? What should anyone take from your post other than that you aren't that into Rust?

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#172

Post by wavemode »

nicoburns wrote: post #14
viktorcode wrote: post #2

> We previously explored Swift, but the C++ interop never quite got there But Rust doesn't have C++ interop at all?

You can do it via the C ABI, and use opaque pointers to represent higher-level Rust/C++ concepts if you want to. Firefox is a mixed C++ / Rust codebase with a relatively close coupling between Rust and C++ components in places (layout/dom/script are in C++ while style is in Rust, and a mix of WebRender (Rust) and Skia (C++) are used for rendering with C++ glue code)

> You can do it via the C ABI, and use opaque pointers to represent higher-level Rust/C++ concepts

Yeah but, you can do the same in Swift

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#173

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

Rochus wrote: post #154
potato-peeler wrote: post #83

Is there any discussion on why D or even Ada was not considered? These languages have been around for long time. If they were willing to use llm to break the initial barrier to entry for a new language, then a case can be made for these languages as well.

Unfortunately a really good question gets downvoted instead of causing a relevant discussion, as so often in recent HN. It would be really interesting to know, why Ada would not be considered for such a large project, especially now when the code is translated with LLMs, as you say. I was never really comfortable that they were going for the most recent C++ versions, since there are still too many differences and uni…

I personally think that people might've framed it as use Ada/D over rust comment which might have the HN people who prefer rust to respond with downvotes.

I agree that, this might be wrong behaviour and I don't think its any fault of rust itself which itself could be a blanket statement imo. There's nuance in both sides of discussions.

Coming to the main point, I feel like the real reason could be that rust is this sort of equilibra that the world has reached for, especially security related projects. Whether good or bad, this means that using rust would definitely lead to more contributor resources and the zeal of rustaceans can definitely be used as well and also third party libraries developed in rust although that itself is becoming a problem nowadays from what I hear from people in here who use rust sometimes (ie. too many dependencies)

Rust does seem to be good enough for this use case. I think the question could be on what D/Ada (Might I also add Nim/V/Odin) will add further to the project but I honestly agree that a fruitful discussion b/w other languages would've been certainly beneficial to the project (imo) and at the very least would've been very interesting to read personally

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#174

Post by tonyedgecombe »

nananana9 wrote: post #106
OtomotO wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2000+ lines/day chunks are 10 days for 20+k lines...

I'm aware. What I meant is this is a reasonable output for a 1:1 translation by hand, without LLM use.

2000 lines a day feels like a lot to me if you want to be thorough.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#176

Post by mghackerlady »

embedding-shape wrote: post #29
skerit wrote: post #15

> I used Claude Code and Codex for the translation. This was human-directed, not autonomous code generation. I decided what to port, in what order, and what the Rust code should look like. It was hundreds of small prompts, steering the agents where things needed to go. After the initial translation, I ran multiple passes of adversarial review, asking different models to analyze the code for mistakes and bad patterns.…

Agree, and it's also such a shame that none of the AI companies actually focus on that way of using AI. All of them are moving into the direction of "less human involved and agents do more", while what I really want is better tooling for me to work closer with AI and be better at reviewing/steering it, and be more involved. I don't want "Fire one prompt and get somewhat working code", I want a UX tailored for long se…

I think it was Steve Jobs who said computers should be like a bicycle for the mind, I tend to agree

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#177

Post by tekne »

echelon wrote: post #162
mr_mitm wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I had Claude write me a web based RSS feed reader in Rust. It has some minor glitches I still need to iron out, but it works great, is fast as can be, and is easy on the eyes. https://github.com/AdrianVollmer/FluxFeed

Rust is the final language. Defect free. Immaculate types. Safe. Ergonomic. Beautiful to read. AI is going to be writing a lot of Rust. The final arguments of "rust is hard to write" are going to quiet down. This makes it even more accessible.

Needs monads (not joking)

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#178

Post by heliumtera »

Fervicus wrote: post #123

> We know the result isn’t idiomatic Rust, and there’s a lot that can be simplified once we’re comfortable retiring the C++ pipeline. That cleanup will come in time. I wonder what kind of tech debt this brings and if the trade off will be worth whatever problems they were having with C++.

Andreas Kling mentioned many times they would prefer a safer language, specifically for their js runtime garbage collector. But since the team were already comfortable with cpp that was the choice, but they were open and active seeking alternatives.

The problem was strictly how cpp is perceived as an unsafe language, and this problem rust does solve! Not being sarcastic, this truly looks like a mature take. Like, we don't know if moving to rust would improve quality or prevent vulnerabilities, here's our best effort to find out and ignore if the claim has merits for now. If the claim maintains, well, you're better prepared, if it doesn't, but the code holds similar qualities...what is the downside?

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#179

Post by lproven »

echelon wrote: post #162
mr_mitm wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I had Claude write me a web based RSS feed reader in Rust. It has some minor glitches I still need to iron out, but it works great, is fast as can be, and is easy on the eyes. https://github.com/AdrianVollmer/FluxFeed

Rust is the final language. Defect free. Immaculate types. Safe. Ergonomic. Beautiful to read. AI is going to be writing a lot of Rust. The final arguments of "rust is hard to write" are going to quiet down. This makes it even more accessible.

> Rust is the final language.

I honestly can't tell if this is a humorous attack or not.

Poe's law is validated once again.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#180

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

ramon156 wrote: post #92
dougiejones wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA mentions "the contributor's" stance on Swift.

But not the stance on Rust, which is something I'm wondering. I understand there's a core team assigned, but are the ~200 contributors okay with this migration?

Why would 200 contributors have to be okay with this migration? The project has a leader, the leader makes decisions.
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