Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental

Post by sho_hn » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:45 AM UTC

mmooss wrote: post #27

markus_zhang wrote: post #11

Not a system programmer -- at this point, does C hold any significant advantage over Rust? Is it inevitable that everything written in C is going to be gradually converted to safer languages?

Before we ask if almost all things old will be rewritten in Rust, we should ask if almost all things new are being written in Rust or other memory-safe languages? Obviously not. When will that happen? 15 years? Maybe it's generational: How long before developers 'born' into to memory-safe languages as serious choices will be substantially in charge of software development?

Post by kbolino » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:49 AM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #20

markus_zhang wrote: post #11

Not a system programmer -- at this point, does C hold any significant advantage over Rust? Is it inevitable that everything written in C is going to be gradually converted to safer languages?

C currently remains the language of system ABIs, and there remains functionality that C can express that Rust cannot (principally bitfields). Furthermore, in terms of extensions to the language to support more obtuse architecture, Rust has made a couple of decisions that make it hard for some of those architectures to be supported well. For example, Rust has decided that the array index type, the object size type, an…

Post by dralley » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:49 AM UTC

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #42

Oh dear can you imagine the crushing complexity of a future Rust kernel.

Post by zengid » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:54 AM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #16

arilotter wrote: post #4

This title is moderately clickbait-y and comes with a subtle implication that Rust might be getting removed from the kernel. IMO it should be changed to "Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental"

I absolutely understand the sentiment, but LWN is a second-to-none publication that on this rare occasion couldn't resist the joke, and also largely plays to an audience who will immediately understand that it's tongue-in-cheek. Speaking as a subscriber of about two decades who perhaps wouldn't have a career without the enormous amount of high-quality education provided by LWN content, or at least a far lesser one: L…

Post by zengid » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:55 AM UTC

arilotter wrote: post #4

This title is moderately clickbait-y and comes with a subtle implication that Rust might be getting removed from the kernel. IMO it should be changed to "Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental"