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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

#91

Post by IshKebab »

lmm wrote: post #27
cv5005 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the rust compiler assure that when compiling to machine code? Machine code is less safe than C after all.

Machine code is generally much safer than C - e.g. it usually lacks undefined behaviour. If you're unsure about how a given piece of machine code behaves, it's usually sufficient to test it empirically.

Not true on RISC-V. That's full of undefined behaviour.

But anyway this is kind of off-topic. I think OutOfHere was imagining that this somehow skips the type checking and borrow checking steps which of course it doesn't.

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

#92

Post by steveklabnik »

teo_zero wrote: post #37
jokoon wrote: post #34

At first I read it as C to rust compiler. What is the point of compiling rust to C?

> What is the point of compiling rust to C? To address platforms that don't support Rust. TFA mentions NonStop, whatever it is.

Not only does NonStop not support Rust, but apparently they failed to port gcc to it, even. So compiling Rust straight to C itself is pretty much the only option there.

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

#93

Post by nickpsecurity »

teo_zero wrote: post #37
jokoon wrote: post #34

At first I read it as C to rust compiler. What is the point of compiling rust to C?

> What is the point of compiling rust to C? To address platforms that don't support Rust. TFA mentions NonStop, whatever it is.

They are amazing machines designed for fault tolerance (99.999% reliability). The Wikipedia article below has design details for how many generations were made. HP bought them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_Computers

I think it would be useful in open-source, fault tolerance to copy one of their designs with SiFive's RISC-V cores. They could use a 20 year old approach to dodge patent issues. Despite its age, the design would probably be competitive, maybe better, than FOSS clusters on modern hardware in fault tolerance.

One might also combine the architecture with one of the strong-consistency DR'S, like FoundationDB or CochroachDB, with modifications to take advantage of its custom hardware. At the local site, the result would be easy scaling of a system whose nodes appeared to never fail. The administrator still has to do regular maintenance, though, as the system reports component failures which it works around.

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

#94

Post by dcow »

vblanco wrote: post #83
jokoon wrote: post #34

At first I read it as C to rust compiler. What is the point of compiling rust to C?

Game consoles generally only offer clang as a possibility for compiler. If you can compile rust to C, then you can finally use rust for videogames that need to run everywhere.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard those two terms “video game” and “run everywhere” in the same sentence. Bravo.

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

#95

Post by koakuma-chan »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #90
hypeatei wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP, but what is the point of touching Rust at all then?

I'd like to write Rust, receive its safety benefits (esp borrow checker), compiler to equivalent C, and then use C's tooling on the result. Why use C's tooling? In verification, C has piles of static analyzers, dynamic analyzers, test generators (eg KLEE), code generators (eg for parsing), a prover (Frama-C), and a certified compiler. If using a subset of these, C code can be made more secure than Rust code with more…

Rust is much easier to learn due to C/C++ books all being paid (even cmake wants you to buy their book) whereas Rust documentation is free. I bet more and more people are choosing to learn Rust over C/C++ for this reason, and the number of C/C++ devs will be decreasing.

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

#96

Post by cynical_german »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #95
nickpsecurity wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to write Rust, receive its safety benefits (esp borrow checker), compiler to equivalent C, and then use C's tooling on the result. Why use C's tooling? In verification, C has piles of static analyzers, dynamic analyzers, test generators (eg KLEE), code generators (eg for parsing), a prover (Frama-C), and a certified compiler. If using a subset of these, C code can be made more secure than Rust code with more…

Rust is much easier to learn due to C/C++ books all being paid (even cmake wants you to buy their book) whereas Rust documentation is free. I bet more and more people are choosing to learn Rust over C/C++ for this reason, and the number of C/C++ devs will be decreasing.

what a weird take to me... 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.

And, if we discount the fact that "buying" a book is such a big hurdle, even more high quality academic text books and papers to boost; anything from embedded on the weirdest platforms, basic parsing, writing compilers, language design, high performance computing, teaching of algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, whatever!

edit: I even forgot to name operating system design plus game programming ; and of course accompanying libraries, compilers & build systems to cover all of those areas and use cases! edit2: networking, signal processing, automotive, learning about industry protocols and devices of any sort... if you explore computer science using C as your main language you are in the biggest candy store in the world with regards to what it is you want to learn about or do or implement...

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

#97

Post by koakuma-chan »

vblanco wrote: post #83
jokoon wrote: post #34

At first I read it as C to rust compiler. What is the point of compiling rust to C?

Game consoles generally only offer clang as a possibility for compiler. If you can compile rust to C, then you can finally use rust for videogames that need to run everywhere.

Is Steam Deck a monopoly yet? I feel like if your game compiles to Linux, you can target pretty much every market out there.

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

#98

Post by Aurornis »

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.

> to allow me to bootstrap Rust on alpha, hppa, m68k and sh4

Do you actually use all four of those platforms, or is this an arbitrary threshold for what you consider a complete set of platform support?

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

#99

Post by koakuma-chan »

cynical_german wrote: post #96
koakuma-chan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust is much easier to learn due to C/C++ books all being paid (even cmake wants you to buy their book) whereas Rust documentation is free. I bet more and more people are choosing to learn Rust over C/C++ for this reason, and the number of C/C++ devs will be decreasing.

what a weird take to me... 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. And, if we discount the fact that "buying" a book is such a big hurdle, even more high quality academic text books and papers to boost; anything from embedded on the weirdest platforms, basic parsing, writing compilers, language design, high perf…

> anything from embedded on the weirdest platforms, basic parsing, writing compilers, language design, high performance computing, teaching of algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, whatever

All that is language-agnostic and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with C.

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

#100

Post by koakuma-chan »

cynical_german wrote: post #96
koakuma-chan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust is much easier to learn due to C/C++ books all being paid (even cmake wants you to buy their book) whereas Rust documentation is free. I bet more and more people are choosing to learn Rust over C/C++ for this reason, and the number of C/C++ devs will be decreasing.

what a weird take to me... 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. And, if we discount the fact that "buying" a book is such a big hurdle, even more high quality academic text books and papers to boost; anything from embedded on the weirdest platforms, basic parsing, writing compilers, language design, high perf…

> 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.

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