Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#331

Post by hsaliak » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

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.…

This is the way. This exact workflow is my sweet spot.

In my coding agent std::slop I've optimized for this workflow https://github.com/hsaliak/std_slop/blob/main/docs/mail_mode... basically the idea is that you are the 'maintainer' and you get bisect safe, git patches that you review (or ask a code reviewer skill or another agent to review). Any change re-rolls the whole stack. Git already supports such a flow and I added it to the agent. A simple markdown skill does not work because it 'forgets'. A 'github' based PR flow felt too externally dependent. This workflow is enforced by a 'patcher' skill, and once that's active, tools do not work unless they follow the enforced flow.

I think a lot of people are going to feel comfortable using agents this way rather than going full blast. I do all my development this way.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#332

Post by mghackerlady » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #216

mghackerlady wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vibe Coding is like porn for programmers. It probably isn't good for you, and you'd probably be better off actually doing the thing yourself, but it feels good and satisfies our desires for instant gratification

Well, take for example, I have ideas I've had for years but no time for because by now the requirements are insane. I want to build a backend that could survive nuclear fallout type stuff. I braindump to Claude, watch it churn out my vision for the last 12 years, its insane. There's other things too though: my ADD and my impostor syndrome don't matter to Claude, Claude just takes it all in, so as I keep brain dumping…

I never said it doesn't have use cases (much like porn a lot of the arguments against are just fear mongering) just that it isn't as good as the real thing. I myself like yapping to an LLM about ideas to see how feasible they actually are before taking a crack at it

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#333

Post by trflynn89 » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

kneel25 wrote: post #261

u_sama wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what the testing suite is there to check, no?

You mean the testing suite generated by AI?

The primary JS test suite is maintained by the authors of the specification itself: https://github.com/tc39/test262

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#334

Post by Sharlin » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 4:45 PM UTC

uyzstvqs wrote: post #245

patates wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coding assistants are also really great at porting from one language to the other I had a broken, one-off Perl script, a relic from the days when everyone thought Drupal was the future (long time ago). It was originally designed to migrate a site from an unmaintained internal CMS to Drupal. The CMS was ancient and it only ran in a VM for "look what we built a million years ago" purposes (I even had written permissi…

> It burned through a mountain of tokens, but 10/10 - would generate tens of thousands of lines of useless code again. This is the biggest bottleneck at this point. I'm looking forward to RAM production increasing, and getting to a point where every high-end PC (workstation & gaming) has a dedicated NPU next to the GPU. You'll be able to do this kind of stuff as much as you want, using any local model you want. Run a…

Wasting electricity to "generate tens of thousands of lines of useless code" at will? Why is that in any way a desirable future?

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#335

Post by Onavo » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

cardanome wrote: post #235

ramon156 wrote: post #38

I'm a long-time Rust fan and have no idea how to respond. I think I need a lot more info about this migration, especially since Ladybird devs have been very vocal about being "anti-rust" (I guess more anti-hype, where Rust was the hype). I don't know if it's a good fit. Not because they're writing a browser engine in Rust (good), but because Ladybird praises CPP/Swift currently and have no idea what the contributor's…

> I guess more anti-hype, where Rust was the hype Yeah that is the thing I struggle with. I am really happy for people falling in love with Rust. It is a amazing language when used for the right use case. The problem is that had my Rust adventures a few years ago and I am over the hype cycle and able to see both the advantages and disadvantages. Plus being generally older and hopefully wiser I don't tie my identity t…

> So sometimes when some Junior dev discovers Rust and they get really obnoxious with their evangelicalism it can be very off putting.

And experience doesn't equal correct decision making. People just get traumatized in different ways.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#336

Post by clouedoc » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

carderne wrote: post #237

newswasboring wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but all of this makes me slightly wary. Wary of what?

I'd say it's the idea/fact/feeling that, in 2026, agency matters more than skill/wisdom/intelligence. Long read on the topic (quite funny, covers Cluely): https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai...

Probably, Roy was born agentic as a part of a package which included an disregard for intellectual growth.

This doesn't mean that being agentic cannot be cultivated by regular people.

In 2026, yes, agency matters more than skill/wisdom/intelligence to get VC funds. But what's the point of agency alone if you are leading such a life?

What gives me hope is that in 2026, skillful people can delegate a lot of their work to LLMs, which gives them time to learn the "agentic" part which is basically marketing and talking with people.

(just thinking out loud)

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#337

Post by fabrice_d » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #278

alabhyajindal wrote: post #268

> This is not becoming the main focus of the project. We will continue developing the engine in C++, and porting subsystems to Rust will be a sidetrack that runs for a long time. I don't like this bit. Wouldn't it be better to decide on a memory-safe language, and then commit to it by writing all new code in Rust, or whatever. This looks like doing double the work.

It doesn't have to all-or-nothing. Firefox has been a mixed C++ and Rust codebase for years now. It isn't like the code is written twice. The C++ components are written in C++, and the Rust components are written in Rust. I suspect that'll also be what happens here. And if the use of Rust is successful, then over time more components may switch over to Rust. But each component will only ever be in one language at a t…

You can't compare the choices made to evolve a >20 years old codebase with a brand new one. Firefox also as Rust support for XPCOM components, so you can use and write them in Rust without manual FFI (this comes with some baggage of course).

The Ladybird devs painted themselves in a corner when choosing C++ for a new web browser, with many anti-Rust folks claiming that "modern C++ was safe". Well...

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#338

Post by jimbokun » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

ikety wrote: post #263

echelon wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why not go full functional programming at that point? If the main issue with FP has been accessibility, then it should really take off now.

Isn’t Rust a pretty good functional language? It has most of the features that enable safe, correct code without being anal about immutability and laziness that make performance difficult to predict.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#339

Post by ivell » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

axus wrote: post #329

mghackerlady wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Agents are a "self-driving car for the mind". I don't enjoy or dislike driving, but lots of Americans love to drive. In the future they will lament their driving skills' decline.

We as the general population have consistently lost lots of skills from just 200 years back. Most likely we will not miss them (though coding used to be my hobby).

Though if apocalypse happens and all of our built tech goes away, we are in for a serious survival issu.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#340

Post by gkbrk » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

pelagicAustral wrote: post #151

throwaway2037 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point. What does Ladybird need to achieve in your opinion to shake the "hype" label? Honestly, I, myself, don't have a good answer!

> What does Ladybird need to achieve in your opinion to shake the "hype" label? A release (?)

Somehow people manage to run it without this magical release