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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

#301

Post by simonw »

oblio wrote: post #260
simonw wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly 26 years ago! https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... What's different today really is the LLMs and coding agents. The reason to never rewrite in another language is that it requires you to stop everything else for months or even years. Stopping for two weeks is a lot less likely to kill your project.

He's still right if you don't have good automated testing and you lost most of the original developers (or you don't have other seniors ceva familiar with the domain).

Hah, yeah if you don't have a comprehensive test suite any rewrite will be a disaster - step one is to get the test suite up to code.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#302

Post by fmajid »

alabhyajindal wrote: post #289

From their post on Twitter in 2024 when they adopted Swift, with a comment on Rust. My general thoughts on Rust: - Excellent for short-lived programs that transform input A to output B - Clunky for long-lived programs that maintain large complex object graphs - Really impressive ecosystem - Toxic community https://xcancel.com/awesomekling/status/1822241531501162806

Considering David Tolnay's indefensible treatment of JeanHeyd Meneide, I'm inclined to agree with Kling on the toxicity of the Rust community. Evangelical fervor does not excuse douchebaggery.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#303

Post by embedding-shape »

zozbot234 wrote: post #254
embedding-shape wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure what the ideal UX looks like yet. The AI assisted autocomplete is too little, but the idea of saying "Build X for purpose Y" is too high-level. Maintaining Markdown documents that the AI implements, also feels too high-level, but letting the human fully drive the implementation probably again too low-level. I'm guessing the direction I'd prefer, would be tooling built to accept and be…

The Markdown documents can be at any level. Just keep asking the AI to break each individual step in the plan down into substeps, then ask it to implement after you review. It's great for the opposite flow too - reverse engineering from working legacy code into mid-level and high-level designs, then proposing good refactors.

Yes, I'm talking about a UX that could handle that for the programmer instead, as an example. Zoom out a bit :)

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#305

Post by MontagFTB »

Any word on how much more memory safe the implementation is? If passing a previous test suite is the criteria for success, what has changed, really? Are there previous memory safety tests that went from failing to passing?

I am very interested to know if this time and energy spent actually improved memory safety.

Other engineers facing the same challenges want to know!

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#306

Post by the__alchemist »

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.

I would say it's overall the best existing language, probably due to learning from past mistakes. On the whole it wins via the pro/con sum. But ... Still loads of room for improvement! Far from a perfect lang; just edges out the existing alternatives by a bit.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#307

Post by cromka »

pjmlp wrote: post #166
cromka wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of browser experience is safety and migrating their JS library to Rust is probably one of the best ways to gain advantage over any other existing engine out there in this aspect. Strategically this may and likely will attract 3rd party users of the JS library itself, thus helping its adoption and further improving it. They're not porting the browser itself to Rust, for the record.

Yet, they are open to further rewrites.

Your rant was about their loss of focus, not about them being open to other changes. Moving goalposts!

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#308

Post by Retr0id »

MontagFTB wrote: post #305

Any word on how much more memory safe the implementation is? If passing a previous test suite is the criteria for success, what has changed, really? Are there previous memory safety tests that went from failing to passing? I am very interested to know if this time and energy spent actually improved memory safety. Other engineers facing the same challenges want to know!

If the previous impl had known memory safety issues I'd imagine they'd fix them as a matter of priority. It's hard to test for memory safety issues you don't know about.

On the rust side, the question is how much `unsafe` they used (I would hope none at all, although they don't specify).

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#309

Post by feverzsj »

alabhyajindal wrote: post #289

From their post on Twitter in 2024 when they adopted Swift, with a comment on Rust. My general thoughts on Rust: - Excellent for short-lived programs that transform input A to output B - Clunky for long-lived programs that maintain large complex object graphs - Really impressive ecosystem - Toxic community https://xcancel.com/awesomekling/status/1822241531501162806

Most likely some big sponsor requires them turn to AI slops.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#310

Post by woadwarrior01 »

simonw wrote: post #140
throwaway2037 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ralph Wiggum loop Can you explain more? (I know the reference that he is the idiot son of Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons.)

https://ghuntley.com/loop/ and https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/blob/main/plugins/...

Looks like it's been renamed to ralph-loop for legal reasons. :D

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official/pull/1...

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