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| ▲ | gmueckl 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think that legitimate real world issues in rust code should be talked about more often. Right now the language enjoys a reputation that is essentiaöly misleading marketing. It isn't possible to create a programing language that doesn't allow bugs to happen (even with formal verification you can still prove correctness based on a wrong set of assumptions). This weird, kind of religious belief that rust leads to magically completely bug free programs needs to be countered and brought in touch with reality IMO. | | |
| ▲ | jeroenhd 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Nobody believes Rust programs are but free, though. Rust never promised that. It doesn't even promise memory safety, it only promises memory safety if you restrict yourself to safe APIs which simply isn't always possible. | | |
| ▲ | Galanwe 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > it only promises memory safety if you restrict yourself to safe APIs which simply isn't always possible. Less than that actually, considering Rust has its own definition of what "safe" means. | | |
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| ▲ | testdelacc1 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is it possible you’ve misunderstood what Rust promises? > It isn't possible to create a programing language that doesn't allow bugs to happen Yes, that’s true. No one doubts this. Except you seem to think that Rust promises no bugs at all? I don’t know where you got this impression from, but it is incorrect. Rust promises that certain kinds of bugs like use-after-free are much, much less likely. It eliminates some kinds of bugs, not all bugs altogether. It’s possible that you’ve read the claim on kinds of bugs, and misinterpreted it as all bugs. I’ve had this conversation before, and it usually ends like https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/aaaah | | |
| ▲ | adrian_b 5 minutes ago | parent [-] | | "Rust" obviously does not promise that. On the other hand, there are too many less-experienced Rust fans who do claim that "Rust" promises this and that any project that does not use Rust is doomed and that any of the existing decades-old software projects should be rewritten in Rust to decrease the chances that they may have bugs. What is described in TFA is not surprising at all, because it is exactly what has been predicted about this and other similar projects. Anyone who desires to rewrite in Rust any old project, should certainly do it. It will be at least a good learning experience and whenever an ancient project is rewritten from scratch, the current knowledge should enable the creation of something better than the original. Nonetheless, the rewriters should never claim that what they have just produced has currently less bugs than the original, because neither they nor Rust can guarantee this, but only a long experience with using the rewritten application. Such rewritten software packages should remain for years as optional alternatives to the originals. Any aggressive push to substitute the originals immediately is just stupid (and yes, I have seen people trying to promote this). |
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| ▲ | lelanthran 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I find it hilarious that this comment is being downvoted. Exactly what is the controversial take here? > I don’t think brushing the bad parts off with “most of the code was really good!” is a fair way to look at this. Nope. this is fine. > Cloudflare crashed a chunk of the internet with a rust app a month or so ago, deploying a bad config file iirc. Maybe this? > Rust isn’t a panacea, it’s a programming language. It’s ok that it’s flawed, all languages are. Nope, this is fine too. | | |
| ▲ | dbdr 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I didn't downvote, but I feel the last two points show a lack of nuance. It's saying "Rust doesn't prevent 100% of the bugs, like all other programming languages", while failing to acknowledge that if a programming language prevents entire classes of bugs, it's a very significant improvement. | |
| ▲ | huimang 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Because the bugs were caused by programmer error, not anything inherent to rust. It was more notable due to cloudflare being a critical dependency for half the internet, but that particular issue could've happened in any language. This kind of melodramatic reaction to rust code is fatiguing, honestly. Rust does not bill itself as some programming panacea or as a bug free language, and neither do any of the people I know using it. That's a strawman that just won't go away. Rust applies constraints regarding memory use and that nearly eliminates a class of bugs, provided safe usage. And that's compelling to enough people that it warrants migration from other languages that don't focus on memory safety. Bugs introduced during a rewrite aren't notable. It happens, they get fixed, life moves on. |
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| ▲ | fluffybucktsnek 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If I'm not mistaken, in the Cloudflare case, both the Rust rewrite and the C++ original version crashed. The primary cause being the bad config file. |
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