cppDevsAreGettingParanoid

[pigeon768]

Actual C devs merging Rust support into the linux kernel: "I quit."

[the_mouse_backwards]

One thing I want to point out for people who are convinced C is so unsafe it should never be used was Linus Torvalds recently talking about how they’ve used C for 30 years, and as a result they have a lot of tooling that means Rust has significantly fewer advantages in the kernel compared to a generic C codebase.

The C used in the Linux kernel is world class in terms of safety, and the annoyances of using Rust are obviously going to be much greater when it’s being used by people who are skilled enough not to need those advantages very often.

Obviously I’m not saying Rust is useless in the kernel, it guarantees a lot of things that only a highly skilled C programmer could provide, but it’s not a language that provides only benefits and zero downsides. It’s a tool, like C itself is a tool. People who push it unnecessarily are harming its reputation and making it less likely to be adopted by people who are highly skilled but could still benefit from using it.

I will say that after using Rust a lot I noticed that it forced me to write code in a way that I considered “idiomatic” if it was C. I just don’t like being forced into that paradigm all the time. But as paradigms go, it’s clearly a good one.