DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
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Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#2Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is.
To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes silent failure through invalid data, not crashing.
I'm impressed that the language is even uglier than bad C++, which is an accomplishment in violating the beauty of reading.
Edit:
No, I think complicated C++ is also distasteful, but equally, sometimes both are just simply necessary.
Annotating specific attributes of data flow is just a requirement for types of guarantees, but I wish they weren't always done inline. It incentivizes programming language authors to squeeze more out of columns, and as a result creates quirky reading that while is more featureful or does things that aren't even possible in other languages, makes for a less than aesthetic reading experience.
I think my opinions can be handwaved away here, but I just wish we as programmers found nicer ways to give these attributes to functions, variables, and parameters.
My account is throttled by Hacker News moderators. So, I can't participate any more here for the time being. Thank you for replying to my comments.
Just expressing some petty opinions, I don't mean to start a syntax flame bait war, sorry all.
Edit (for Ygg2): What you think is superficial is an entire portion of the art of software development. And your usage of FUD is incorrect. Disliking a painting, a song, or a book isn't FUD. It's just plain as day disinterest.
Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#3Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is. To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes…
Have you tried Ada?
Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#4Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is. To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes…
Have you tried Ada?
No, though I am familiar with its history a bit.
Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#5Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is. To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes…
What are the specific aesthetic complaints here?
In my limited rust experience, I’ve found that it does a pretty good job of using the ugliness of something like an explicit lifetime to signal to the developer and reader that the code is doing something complicated and non-obvious. Like “here’s a part where the types logic required more help than what the compiler could figure out on its own; here be dragons.”
In that way the “ugliness” is really just a manifestation of “hard things possible” and the language not hiding the underlying realities from you.
Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#6Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is. To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes…
I’d suggest reading their (free, online) book if you haven’t already, that’s what motivated me to actually try using it. It sells its core features pretty well and eased me into it better than just trying to grok the syntax. What kept me using it is how annoyingly frequently my code would _just work_ once I got it compiling, which I could often get to pretty quickly by catching errors early with a linter. I’d highly recommend giving it an honest try, the aesthetics make sense with a minimal amount of experience.
Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#7Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is. To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes…
What are the specific aesthetic complaints here? In my limited rust experience, I’ve found that it does a pretty good job of using the ugliness of something like an explicit lifetime to signal to the developer and reader that the code is doing something complicated and non-obvious. Like “here’s a part where the types logic required more help than what the compiler could figure out on its own; here be dragons.” In tha…
Some of my complaints are petty, and I think can be dismissed as just personal preference. I don't have a great deal of complaint with languages with different syntax, just ones that are so intentionally cryptic so as to invent needless specific sigils that you need to memorize.
I agree that most of the awkwardness of reading comes from explicit declarations, but really, even if it's more verbose, I would prefer that that explicit nature is defined elsewhere rather than reading like a compact run-on sentence. (I'm hypocritically writing here, since I do this too often myself.)
Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#8Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is. To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes…
Have you tried Ada?
Wait, wasn't there a DARPA round funding automatic translation of C to Ada once, long ago?
Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#9Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is. To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes…
I see this complaint all the time about Rust, and it always confuses me because it doesn't match my experience at all. Do you have an example of Rust syntax that is more complicated than complicated C++?
Re: DARPA project for automated translation from C to Rust (2024)
#10Maybe I just need to spend more time with Rust and deal with it, but I'm sad the industry desires to rally around it. Despite the specific subset of protections it aims to provide, I have always had issues with how ugly the language is. To a lesser extent, I have a problem with the protections it doesn't provide and leads developers to think they're writing safe software that in specific cases, actually just promotes…
It’s sad you are getting downvoted for simply expressing what seems to be a genuine opinion.