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

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 4/7/2022 11:46 AM, chris wrote:
> Many years ago, worked on an avionics project where all the code
> was written in micro assembler. That and other products
> typically had a set of documents describing every aspect and stage
> of the project. The was no concept ef mathematical provability,
> and this was a safety critical system. Each module was individually
> tested, where every line of the code was exercised to verify what
> was in most cases, the obvious, but done anyway. At a higher level,
> the whole system was subjected to rigorous testing with valid and
> invalid data, stress testing,  to confirm that it was doing as
> expected.
> 
> What i's saying is that code integrity can be improved by various
> means, but the main factor is always the process involved. Full
> documentation at every stage of development, audit trail, peer
> group code reviews, and a thorough test program to verify operation
> to spec and reliability under extreme conditions. Problem is
> that such a process is very expensive to do right and most companies
> are not prepared to invest in that, especially with short
> product lifetimes and pressure to get the product to market.
> 
> So the typical process these days is rapid development, which skimps
> on process and testing and debugs the product at the customer. I
> don't think any language can cure that, as it's the process and
> attention to detail that are missing and no fault of the language
> involved. To suggest that sort of thing can be fixed by the
> current language fashion of the month is fantasy and ignores
> the main problem...

No tool or language can solve all problems.

But one like to automate what can be automated.

More safe languages and code analysis tools are
cost efficient ways to improve software quality
compared to manual code review.

If the tools find a large part of the problems
then the reviews does not drown in issues.

If the language like Rust (and C# even though
almost never used) sort of flag the code sections
where it makes sense to focus on reviews in the
form of unsafe blocks, then it again help
the reviews.

Arne