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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"
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?
For my work code, it all comes down to SDKs and stuff. For example I'm going to write firmware for Nordic ARM chip. Nordic SDK uses C, so I'm not going to jump through infinite number of hoops and incomplete rust ports, I'll just use official SDK and C. If it would be the opposite, I would be using Rust, but I don't think that would happen in the next 10 years.
Just like C++ never killed C, despite being perfect replacement for it, I don't believe that Rust would kill C, or C++, because it's even less convenient replacement. It'll dilute the market, for sure.
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?
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?
A lot of C's popularity is with how standard and simple it is. I doubt Rust will be the safe language of the future, simply because of its complexity. The true future of "safe" software is already here, JavaScript. There will be small niches leftover: * Embedded - This will always be C. No memory allocation means no Rust benefits. Rust is also too complex for smaller systems to write compilers. * OS / Kernel - Nearly…
This isn't really true; otherwise, there would be no reason for no_std to exist. Data race safety is independent of whether you allocate or not, lifetimes can be handy even for fixed-size arenas, you still get bounds checks, you still get other niceties like sum types/an expressive type system, etc.
> OS / Kernel - Nearly all of the relevant code is unsafe.
I think that characterization is rather exaggerated. IIRC the proportion of unsafe code in Redox OS is somewhere around 10%, and Steve Klabnik said that Oxide's Hubris has a similarly small proportion of unsafe code (~3% as of a year or two ago) [0]
> Browsers - Despite being born in a browser, Rust is unlikely to make any inroads.
Technically speaking, Rust already has. There has been Rust in Firefox for quite a while now, and Chromium has started allowing Rust for third-party components.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42312699
[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/bhtuah/production_dep...
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 think on HN, people generally want the submission's title to match the page's title. (I do agree it's clickbait-y though)
> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> on this rare occasion couldn't resist the joke It was unintentional as per author > Ouch. That is what I get for pushing something out during a meeting, I guess. That was not my point; the experiment is done, and it was a success. I meant no more than that.
Has anyone found them to be inaccurate, or fluffy to the point it degraded the content?
I haven’t - but then again, probably predominantly reading the best posts being shared on aggregators.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What other newfangled alternative to C was ever adopted in the Linux kernel? I have no doubt C will be around for a long time, but I think Rust also has a lot of staying power and won’t soon be replaced.
I wouldn't be surprised to see zig in the kernel at some point
Rust is different because it both:
- significantly improve the security of the kernel by removing the nastiest class of security vulnerabilities.
- And reduce cognitive burden for contributors by allowing to encode in thr typesystem the invariants that must be upheld.
That doesn't mean Zig is a bad language for a particular project, just that it's not worth adding to an already massive project like the Linux kernel. (Especially a project that already have two languages, C and now Rust).
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?
Every system under the Sun has a C compiler. This isn't remotely true for Rust. Rust is more modern than C, but has it's own issues, among others very slow compilation times. My guess is that C will be around long after people will have moved on from Rust to another newfangled alternative.
This is still the worst possible argument for C. If C persists in places no one uses, then who cares?