[Info-vax] Rust as a HS language, was: Re: Quiet?

[chris]

On 04/06/22 00:46, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/5/2022 9:04 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> So, I have been following this discussion for some time now.  I have
>> never used Rust.  I have never even looked at Rust. But I do have one
>> question.
>>
>> Just what is it that Rust can do that none of the already existing
>> languages could do?
>
> (this is going to be a bit high level as I don't code in Rust)
>
> There is probably nothing that Rust can do that other languages
> can't do. Most stuff can be done in any language.
>
> But there may be some things where Rust is better than other
> languages.
>
> It is a modern language in the low level category.
>
> Modern means that it has looked at problems with older
> languages and tried to fix those.
>
> Low level makes it rare, because there are not many modern
> languages that are low level aka intended to be close to
> the metal and able to be used for OS and similar code.
>
> Go to high level code for business application and there
> are a ton of languages:
> * JVM languages - Java, Kotlin, Scala, Groovy
> * .NET languages - C#, VB.NET
> * JavaScript, TypeScript, Dart
> * PHP, Hack
> * modern C++
> * Python
> * Ruby
> and that is just the most widely used one - there are dozens more.
>
> For low level I can only think of two: Rust and Go. And they seem to
> have found different markets - the OS people like Rust and the
> container people like Go.
>
> C and C++ are currently dominating the low level code area, but
> there are some well known problem.
>
> Two of those problems are:
> * buffer overruns
> * memory leaks

Neither of those are the fault of the core language, but C library,
separate from the language. Man write their own library
functions to avoid that sort of issue.

What the C language provides, is the sharpest programming tool
in the box, just make sure you don't cut yourself. Personal
responsibility, not rule based order...

Chris




> Of course it is possible to write C and C++ code without risk
> of buffer overruns and memory leaks.
>
> But decades of experience shows that at scale like hiring 100
> average developers to write 1 million lines of code, then a
> number of those problems get introduced.
>
> Rust avoid those.
>
> Rust checks memory access *unless* in an unsafe block (idea borrowed
> from C# language). As a low level language Rust has the need to be able
> to do some flexible memory access - I can not imagine it is
> possible to write a device driver if only able to access memory
> in variables in the program.
>
> Rust has a unique approach to memory handling based on
> ownership (idea borrowed from modern C++ best practice
> not C++ language) that avoids memory leaks without GC - as
> a low level language that may be used in real time
> context, then the standard solution to avoid memory
> leaks in high level languages GC could be problematic.
>
> Arne
>