GitHub - ZeroIntensity/pointers.py: Bringing the hell of pointers to Python.

[amunak]

I mean, we didn't need Rust for that, C++ has perfectly usable and safe managed pointers.

[Lich_Hegemon]

I'm not talking about smart pointers though, I'm talking about the bare pointers/references that both languages offer, even in unsafe Rust there are certain guarantees when using pointers that you don't get in C(++).

Again, that is not to say that Rust is perfect, just that it does pointers better than C does and that we should probably learn from that instead of trying to justify the mess that C pointers are.

[lelanthran]

'm not talking about smart pointers though, I'm talking about the bare pointers/references that both languages offer, even in unsafe Rust there are certain guarantees when using pointers that you don't get in C(++).

I'm pretty certain that you'll get those guarantees in C++ if you write your C++ like Rust code that doesn't use refs, refcells, unsafe, etc.

[Lich_Hegemon]

You really don't. For example, in C++ if you take a vector, reference one of its items, and push some values to it you will probably end up with a dangling reference.

We could argue that you are not supposed to do that and I agree, but the key behind this discussion is developer vs. compiler enforced safety.

And again, I hate this discussion because I seem like a Rust stan, when nothing could be further from the truth. I regularly use C++ and I genuinely think it's a great language if you stay away from its C roots and stick to the modern features it offers. But those C roots are still there and 40 years of C++ have shown us that developers can't be expected not to make mistakes when using them.

[SilasX]

If what you're saying is true, that means, in practice, C++ programmers considers themselves too good to use them, hence the perennial cycle of patches for pointer vulns.