TWiR quote of the week

Rust would be better if it were written in Rust.

LLVM backend

Good news!

(wasmtime/README.md at main · bytecodealliance/wasmtime · GitHub)

"Aha, but std still has a libc dependency -"

(GitHub - bytecodealliance/rustix: Safe Rust bindings to POSIX-ish APIs)

"But the syscalls are still implemented in C -"

"But what about disk controllers, and firmware, and drivers, and everything else? Surely there isn't some way to completely avoid C?"

(from reddit)

1 Like

@lina @dougall While working on these userspace Mesa changes today, I did not hit a single GPU kernel driver bug. Not. A. Single. Bug.

This is thanks to Lina's phenomenal efforts. She took a gamble writing the kernel driver in Rust, knowing it would take longer to get to the first triangle but believing it would make for a more robust driver in the end. She was right.

A few months of Lina's Rust development has produced a more stable driver than years of development in C on certain mainline Linux GPU kernel drivers.

I think... I think I have Rust envy :crab:

....Or maybe just Lina envy :blush:

https://social.treehouse.systems/@alyssa/109311654876060384

6 Likes

Regarding the friction you feel when writing embedded Rust in the same way you wrote embedded C++...

9 Likes

A fun little jab and hat tip to the Rust community...

I'm expecting this article to make the rust crew go in a crusade again, and I think I might be with them this time.

http://blog.pkh.me/p/37-gcc-undefined-behaviors-are-getting-wild.html

3 Likes

On appreciating explicitness in code:

9 Likes

To date, there have been zero memory safety vulnerabilities discovered in Android’s Rust code.

Memory Safe Languages in Android 13

15 Likes

Or maybe this one:

Safety measures make memory-unsafe languages slow

(Same source)

5 Likes

Strongly seconded, and I'd even suggest potentially highlighting the article even more than just another link in the link section.

For the quote, I think it's even more powerful to include the context directly following in the same article that

Based on historical vulnerability density, it’s likely that using Rust has already prevented hundreds of vulnerabilities from reaching production.

8 Likes

I think a better context is "There are approximately 1.5 million total lines of Rust code in AOSP across new functionality and components", but I wanted to keep the quote focused.

Meanwhile, I just had to try really hard not to leave angry comments under a StrangeLoop video, in which the presenter claimed there is no evidence that statically-typed languages prevent any real bugs from happening.

13 Likes

In the depths of a computer's core,
Where bits and bytes are stored,
Lies a tool that's often ignored
But without it, things would be floored.

It's the rust borrow checker,
A guardian of memory,
Ensuring that data is in the right place
And never causing miseries.

With each line of code it carefully scans,
Checking for underflows and overflows,
Preventing errors, saving the day,
And keeping the program in a flow.

So let's give a nod to this silent hero,
Whose work may go unnoticed, but is never zero,
It's the rust borrow checker,
A vital part of the machine,
Ensuring our programs run clean.

-- ChatGPT prompted by Vivek Yadav

4 Likes

... you can lead a horse to git but you cannot make it commit.

u/kibwen on reddit

4 Likes

If you built a rocket and that rocket crashes, you wouldn't update the spec of the rocket to say "it is expected to crash after reaching 3000m altitude". But if you made a typo that says the rocket should crash after reaching 3000m altitude and somehow passed review, you wouldn't add a self detonation device into the rocket just because of this either.

-- SOF3, https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/3355#issuecomment-1343908130

2 Likes

"Rust does best when we're ambitious"

-- Niko Matsakis quoted by Yoshua Wuyts on his blog (thanks @yoshuawuyts for clearing the quote!)

6 Likes

Hah, I've pinged the person in question whether they're comfortable being quoted. I intentionally kept them anonymous so I didn't have to clear the quote in question (it's close to winter holidays, I thought they might be offline already), but welp, so much for that haha.

I'll reach back out if they get back to me with permission to attribute this quote to them.

3 Likes

Cleared the quote, you can attribute it to Niko Matsakis (:

1 Like

Self-suggestion:

Constraints liberate. Rust is for now the most liberating set of constraints we have in a programming language.

Yours truly on twitter

7 Likes

Also self-nominating from this toot:

The Rust community has long had a codified commitment to being a safe space and the language has benefited enormously from it. It's not hard to find people from trans, gay, furry, or otherwise marginalized groups leading initiatives to improve the language or manage critical open source libraries. When we allow bigots in, our community suffers, both in character and in output.

- Brian Kung on Hachyderm.io

2 Likes

@steffahn on this fine forum:

You haven’t “fooled” rustc, you are using unsafe code. Unsafe code means that all you can do is fool yourself.

18 Likes

In Rust terms, the entire Windows system is unsafe. Do you mean that using Rust for Windows development is fooling yourself? I'm trying to apply Rust to a Windows app. Maybe it is a stillborn idea.