How is that worse than everything being unsafe?

I've seen this argument thrown around often here in HN ("$IMPROVEMENT is still not perfect! So let's keep the statu quo.") and it baffles me.

C is not perfect and it still replaced ASM in 99% of its use cases.

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menaerus 20 hours ago | parent [-]

No, I am not saying keep the status quo. I am simply challenging the idea that kernel will enjoy benefits that is supposed to be provided by Rust.

Distribution of bugs across the whole codebase is not following the normal distribution but multimodal. Now, imagine where the highest concentration of bugs will be. And how many bugs there will be elsewhere. Easy to guess.

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kaoD 20 hours ago | parent [-]

> Now, imagine where the highest concentration of bugs will be. And how many bugs there will be elsewhere.

You're doing it again!

Doesn't matter where the majority of bugs will be. If you avoid the minority it's still an improvement.

Also, Rust safety is not related at all to bugs. You seem to have a misunderstanding of what Rust is or what safe Rust provides.

(Also, I'd challenge the rest of your assumptions, but that's another story.)

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menaerus 20 hours ago | parent [-]

What am I exactly doing again? I am providing my reasoning, sorry if that itches you the wrong way. I guess you don't have to agree but let me express my view, ok? My view is not extremist or polarized as you see. I see the benefit of Rust but I say the benefit is not what Internet cargo-cult programming suggests. There's always a price to be paid, and in case of kernel development I think it outweighs the positive sides.

If I spend 90% of time debugging freaking difficult to debug issues, and Rust solves the other 10% for me, then I don't see it as a good bargain. I need to learn a completely new language, surround myself with a team which is also not hesitant to learn it, and all that under assumption that it won't make some other aspects of development worse. And for surely it will.

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