Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
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Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#2Zig main dev proposes to introduce a Fil-C like compilation mode to make zig safe: it's only natural to mention how that's different from Rust, right? What about all the other languages, Andrew?
I'm tired to see zig head people trying to diss Rust whenever they can. It's annoying for people that enjoy both languages and it's really a hint of how toxic the zig community is.
Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#3Zig main dev proposes to introduce a Fil-C like compilation mode to make zig safe: it's only natural to mention how that's different from Rust, right? What about all the other languages, Andrew? I'm tired to see zig head people trying to diss Rust whenever they can. It's annoying for people that enjoy both languages and it's really a hint of how toxic the zig community is.
This is about a strictly-enforced form of run-time memory safety where there's no `unsafe` escape hatch that a careless programmer can misuse to undermine the memory safety mechanism. Contrasting with Rust is helpful to get that point across - which the body text of the issue does.
I can't speak for Andrew, but I didn't read this as a "diss" at all.
Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#4Zig main dev proposes to introduce a Fil-C like compilation mode to make zig safe: it's only natural to mention how that's different from Rust, right? What about all the other languages, Andrew? I'm tired to see zig head people trying to diss Rust whenever they can. It's annoying for people that enjoy both languages and it's really a hint of how toxic the zig community is.
This is about a strictly-enforced form of run-time memory safety where there's no `unsafe` escape hatch that a careless programmer can misuse to undermine the memory safety mechanism. Contrasting with Rust is helpful to get that point across - which the body text of the issue does. I can't speak for Andrew, but I didn't read this as a "diss" at all.
Sure, the point makes sense but if that's the sole point I think communication is quite bad. Fil-C is memory-safe only if the whole stack is compiled with Fil-C: this does not hold for Rust which does not require to recompile every dependency. Some dependencies cannot even be recompiled.
So it turns out this is not "unlike Rust", it's pretty much the same thing: if everything was built in safe rust, then it would be as safe. The communication of this point is not great at all, so much so I don't think it's purely informative.
Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#5Zig main dev proposes to introduce a Fil-C like compilation mode to make zig safe: it's only natural to mention how that's different from Rust, right? What about all the other languages, Andrew? I'm tired to see zig head people trying to diss Rust whenever they can. It's annoying for people that enjoy both languages and it's really a hint of how toxic the zig community is.
This is about a strictly-enforced form of run-time memory safety where there's no `unsafe` escape hatch that a careless programmer can misuse to undermine the memory safety mechanism. Contrasting with Rust is helpful to get that point across - which the body text of the issue does. I can't speak for Andrew, but I didn't read this as a "diss" at all.
By the way
> Zig will become one of the only toolchains capable of producing actually memory safe executables
there's a whole class of GC languages that can do that
Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#6This will be huge if accomplished.
Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is about a strictly-enforced form of run-time memory safety where there's no `unsafe` escape hatch that a careless programmer can misuse to undermine the memory safety mechanism. Contrasting with Rust is helpful to get that point across - which the body text of the issue does. I can't speak for Andrew, but I didn't read this as a "diss" at all.
Sure, the point makes sense but if that's the sole point I think communication is quite bad. Fil-C is memory-safe only if the whole stack is compiled with Fil-C: this does not hold for Rust which does not require to recompile every dependency. Some dependencies cannot even be recompiled. So it turns out this is not "unlike Rust", it's pretty much the same thing: if everything was built in safe rust, then it would be…
> So it turns out this is not "unlike Rust", it's pretty much the same thing: if everything was built in safe rust, then it would be as safe. The communication of this point is not great at all, so much so I don't think it's purely informative.
Safe Rust still basically always links against unsafe C libraries though. Fil-C will only link against libraries compiled with Fil-C which makes for a vastly stronger guarantee.
Also, plenty of code written in Rust is not safe so "if everything was built in safe rust, then it would be as safe" does not hold. There's definitely no way to write safe inline assembly in Rust.
Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#8Fwiw andrewk seems to be deleting comments that criticize this approach. Not a good look on his part.
Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is about a strictly-enforced form of run-time memory safety where there's no `unsafe` escape hatch that a careless programmer can misuse to undermine the memory safety mechanism. Contrasting with Rust is helpful to get that point across - which the body text of the issue does. I can't speak for Andrew, but I didn't read this as a "diss" at all.
By the way > Zig will become one of the only toolchains capable of producing actually memory safe executables there's a whole class of GC languages that can do that
I think the point here is to include C library dependencies. Which GC languages in general consider outside the scope of its memory safety.
Re: Introduce a memory safe compilation mode inspired by Fil-C
#10Zig main dev proposes to introduce a Fil-C like compilation mode to make zig safe: it's only natural to mention how that's different from Rust, right? What about all the other languages, Andrew? I'm tired to see zig head people trying to diss Rust whenever they can. It's annoying for people that enjoy both languages and it's really a hint of how toxic the zig community is.
I spend quite a bit of time in the Zig community, more as an outsider as I don’t contribute very much.
I really don’t see how you could find the community toxic unless you take everything they want to do differently from other languages (which may come along with some criticism - explicit or implicit) as some kind of toxic negativity?
“I'm tired to see zig head people trying to diss Rust whenever they can.”
I feel like in every Zig post you’ve got Walter Bright saying D did this 10 years ago and a bunch of other people saying Zig isn’t a robust language because it can’t do memory safety like Rust. I find it annoying, but it’s just how it is. We like to compare things we like and there will unavoidably be some negativity in there. We should try to steelman these comments. And the steelman case for Andrew’s mention of Rust here is that this is just a different approach to memory safety, and that’s it’s just more complete in the specific way he and Fil-C is referencing
I’ve seen many Zig enthusiasts who is positive to Rusts approach to memory safety (it’s definitely nice to catch things at compile time), but just don’t consider it the ultimate approach that is best for all kinds of software