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Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

fractalfir.github.io

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Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#161

Post by koakuma-chan »

ryao wrote: post #157
koakuma-chan wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> C has DECADES of high quality teaching material in form of books, university courses, plenty of which is freely available with a bit of searching. Which means all that high quality teaching material is DECADES old. Rust development is centralised and therefore the docs are always up-to-date, unlike C/C++ which is a big big mess.

Being decades old does not make it out of date. Until a few years ago, the Linux kernel was written using C89. While it has switched to C11, the changes are fairly small such that a book on C89 is still useful. Many projects still write code against older C versions, and the C compiler supports specifying older C versions. This is very different than Rust where every new version is abandonware after 6 weeks and the c…

> This is very different than Rust where every new version is abandonware after 6 weeks and the compiler does not let you specify that your code is from a specific version.

Do you have any specific evidence? Rust ecosystem is known for libraries that sit on crates.io for years with no updates but they are still perfectly usable (backward-compatible) and popular. Projects usually specify their MSRV (minimum supported Rust version) in the README.

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#162

Post by icedchai »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #156
icedchai wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last I checked various stats (GitHub Language stats, TIOBE, etc.), Rust wasn't even in the top 10. I'm sure its adoption is increasing. However, other languages like Go seem to be doing much better. Neither will replace C++ or C anytime soon.

C/C++ will be replaced incrementally and it’s already happening. Cloudflare recently replaced nginx with their own alternative written in Rust for example.

That's nice, but a couple of Rust rewrites are not proof of a general trend.

I've been working with C for over 30 years, both professionally and a hobbyist. I have experimented with Rust but not done anything professionally with it. My gut feel is Rust is too syntactically and conceptually complex to be a practical C replacement. C++ is also has language complexity issues, however it can be adopted piecemeal and applied to most existing C code.

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#163

Post by dralley »

jedisct1 wrote: post #125
cbmuser wrote: post #74

I am still waiting for any of the alternative Rust front- or backends to allow me to bootstrap Rust on alpha, hppa, m68k and sh4 which are still lacking Rust support. Originally, the rustc_codegen_gcc project made this promise but never fulfilled it.

rust still doesn't even support OpenBSD on x86_64...

Rust has Tier 3 support for OpenBSD on x86_64

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#164

Post by FractalFir »

Someone wrote: post #80
drdeca wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are probably C compilers for more platforms than there are rust compilers. So, if you want to compile your rust project on some obscure platform that doesn’t have a rust compiler for it yet, you could compile to C and then compile the resulting C code for that platform? Just a guess.

This project doesn’t have that as a goal. In fact, it doesn’t even have “Rust to C compiler” as a goal. https://github.com/FractalFir/rustc_codegen_clr : “ The project aims to provide a way to easily use Rust libraries in .NET. It comes with a Rust/.NET interop layer, which allows you to easily interact with .NET code from Rust […] While .NET is the main focus of my work, this project can also be used to compile Rust…

The README is slightly out of date, sorry. Supporting old platforms is one of the goals.

Truth be told, the support for C was at first added as a proff-of-concept that a Rust to C compiler is possible. But it worked surprisingly well, so I just decided to roll with it, and see where it takes me.

My policy in regards to C version is: I want to be as close to ANSI C as possible. So, I avoid modern C features as much as I can. I don't know if full compatibility is achievable, but I certainly hope so. Only time will tell.

Some simpler pieces of Rust work just fine with ANSI C compilers, but more complex code breaks(eg. due to unsupported intrinsics). If I will be able to solve that(+ some potential soundness issues) then I'll be able to use ANSI C.

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#165

Post by woodruffw »

CursedSilicon wrote: post #146
Aurornis wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though, the trend I'm seeing a lot of is greenfield projects just migrating their MCUs to ARM. That’s what I would expect, too. The Venn diagram of projects using an old architecture like alpha but also wanting to adopt a new programming language is nearly two separate circles. The parent comment even included HPPA (PA-RISC) which almost makes me think they’re into either retro computing or they have some arbitrary…

Hi, retro computing person here. I've had a similar debate with Rust evangelists in past Something the Rust community doesn't understand is when they shout "REWRITE IT IN RUST!" at a certain point that's simply not possible Those mainframes your Bank runs? I'm sure they'd love to see all that "awful" FORTRAN or C or whatever other language rewritten in Rust. But if Rust as a platform doesn't support the architecture?…

> This specific line in Tier 2 would send most project managers running for the hills "Tier 2 target-specific code is not closely scrutinized by Rust team(s) when modifications are made. Bugs are possible in all code, but the level of quality control for these targets is likely to be lower"

Are you operating under the assumption that the largely implicit support tiers in other compilers are better? In other words: do you think GCC’s m68k backend (to pick an arbitrary one) has been as battle-tested as their AArch64 one?

(I think the comment about evangelists is a red herring here: what Rust does is offer precison in what it guarantees, while C as an ecosystem has historically been permissive of mystery meat compilers. This IMO doesn’t scale well in a world where project maintainers are trivially accessible, since they have to now field bug reports on platforms they can’t reproduce for and never intended to support to begin with.)

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#166

Post by koakuma-chan »

icedchai wrote: post #162
koakuma-chan wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C/C++ will be replaced incrementally and it’s already happening. Cloudflare recently replaced nginx with their own alternative written in Rust for example.

That's nice, but a couple of Rust rewrites are not proof of a general trend. I've been working with C for over 30 years, both professionally and a hobbyist. I have experimented with Rust but not done anything professionally with it. My gut feel is Rust is too syntactically and conceptually complex to be a practical C replacement. C++ is also has language complexity issues, however it can be adopted piecemeal and appl…

> That's nice, but a couple of Rust rewrites are not proof of a general trend.

It’s not just a couple. We’ve seen virtually all JS tooling migrate to Rust, and there is many more things but I can’t remember by name.

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#167

Post by koakuma-chan »

icedchai wrote: post #162
koakuma-chan wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C/C++ will be replaced incrementally and it’s already happening. Cloudflare recently replaced nginx with their own alternative written in Rust for example.

That's nice, but a couple of Rust rewrites are not proof of a general trend. I've been working with C for over 30 years, both professionally and a hobbyist. I have experimented with Rust but not done anything professionally with it. My gut feel is Rust is too syntactically and conceptually complex to be a practical C replacement. C++ is also has language complexity issues, however it can be adopted piecemeal and appl…

> My gut feel is Rust is too syntactically and conceptually complex to be a practical C replacement.

That would depend on what you use C for. But I sure can imagine people complain that Rust gets in the way of their prototyping while their C code is filled with UB and friends.

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#168

Post by FractalFir »

flomo wrote: post #145
ay wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I clicked through to the project at https://github.com/FractalFir/rustc_codegen_clr - from a quick glance at it, with 1.8k stars and 17 contributors, it deserves a better treatment than a passive—aggressive dismissal like this as a top comment. It is a very impressive piece of work.

Right, and that probably should have been the link rather than some in-process thoughts about popcount or w/e. Sorry for not figuring it out and clicking around effectively.

The linked article was mostly meant for people already lossely familiar with the project, but it seems it escaped its intended audience.

I do have a whole bunch of articles about the project on my website, going trough the entire journey of the project, from its start as a Rust to .NET compiler, to the current state.

https://fractalfir.github.io/generated_html/home.html

I should have probably linked the previous articles in this one - I'll add that to my website. I'll also look into adding some more context to the articles next time.

Thanks for the feedback :)

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#169

Post by flomo »

FractalFir wrote: post #168
flomo wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and that probably should have been the link rather than some in-process thoughts about popcount or w/e. Sorry for not figuring it out and clicking around effectively.

The linked article was mostly meant for people already lossely familiar with the project, but it seems it escaped its intended audience. I do have a whole bunch of articles about the project on my website, going trough the entire journey of the project, from its start as a Rust to .NET compiler, to the current state. https://fractalfir.github.io/generated_html/home.html I should have probably linked the previous arti…

I guess the complaint was more about your fans updooting stuff, so apologies if it sounded like I was shitting on this. Cool project, and I really am awaiting the presentation/writeup.

Re: Rust to C compiler – 95.9% test pass rate, odd platforms

#170

Post by uecker »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #148
uecker wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it also has many aspects I do not like about it. Let's not pretend everybody shares your enthusiasm for it.

What aspects do you not like about Rust?

Too much complexity, long build times, monomorphization, lack of stability / no standard, poor portability, supply chain issues, no dynamic linking, no proper standard, not enough different implementations, etc. It is a nice language though, but I do not prefer it over C.
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