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You're the person who brought up Rust in that thread. The user 'mokus', which is a handle I do not recognize from the Rust community, advocates using 'memory sa

You're the person who brought up Rust in that thread. The user 'mokus', which is a handle I do not recognize from the Rust community, advocates using 'memory safe languages' over C. So apparently you have a habit of projecting support for Rust on anyone who criticizes C?

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
This is very quickly devolving into a stupid flamewar, assuming it isn't already there. This is a thread about Rust error messages. When someone describes useful C warnings messages and someone follows up with criticism for C even making situations where those warnings are possible in such a thread, it's pretty reasonable to make the connection. What's your problem, dude?
- oldmanjay 10y ago
  I don't think the issue was that you made a connection to Rust. The issue seems to be that you used it as an excuse to rant about a tangent with an aggressive tone in article that will attract proponents of the target of your rant. In other words, it didn't devolve into a flamewar, because that's where you started it out.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Drew, you're actually wrong here. Safe systems languages predate Rust by quite a while, most of them being in the Wirth family (Modula, Oberon, etc.). Given that here at HN, we have a large constituency of Lisp Hackers and Unix Haters (as in the handbook), if somebody talks about how C is junk, and how safe systems languages should be used instead (esp. if that person is pjmlp, nickpsecurity, or lispm), they are likely referring to those, not Rust. So not a reasonable connection to make, if you know a bit more of the context. I certainly don't blame you for making the jump, but I seem to be in the minority.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Great analysis. The thread he links actually corroborates it, too. I've even found a few more safer, system languages since then that may be featured in future lists or threads. To be fair to me, though, note that I also heavily promote memory-safe C (eg Softbound, SAFEcode), memory-safe UNIX (CheriBSD, SVA-OS), and user-mode UNIX (eg seperation kernels, GenodeOS) to help UNIX/C users reduce serious problems they might encounter. I just default on countering root causes of problems as first resort. ;)
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      I didn't know that about you. However, I would say that you probably fall under UNIX-Hater nonetheless. Not that that is a bad thing, it's merely a statement about your opinions and ideals. I will totally have to check out some of those project now. Although I do wonder why Cyclone, the project that inspired Rust, wasn't on your list for memory-safe C.
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        Oh yeah, I've linked to original and ESR's interpretation of UNIX Hater Handbook. Like I said, great analysis minus that one aspect of my posts here. :) Far as recommendations, putting my name and those terms into Google gives me six hits on HN where I recommend them both. In several, I push alternatives like microkernels, SPARK, and Rust plus those if person stays with C. In reply to ZeroTier developer, I reference Code-Pointer Integrity too while pointing out he's less safe with C++ because he can't use these C features. Ironic. "Although I do wonder why Cyclone, the project that inspired Rust, wasn't on your list for memory-safe C." I get 47 hits on that as I give Morissett et al's work plenty credit. Often when someone says Rust did the dynamic safety first where I counter they got it from Cyclone. Reason I don't push Cyclone so much is it isn't actively developed any more like most safer C's. C people just ignore them. Others included Safe-C, Clay, and Vault languages although I don't think all of them were OSS'd. Many non-C languages also compiled to C to get portability and performance benefits while app gets type-checked or other checks (eg bounds). Hardly any take-up there either. At this point, I just recommend them putting work into compiler extensions that make C safer with reasonable performance hits. SAFEcode already in LLVM, too.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Thanks for the hint, getting famous :) Actually I would enjoy C, if the language just had a few things from Wirth side: - Real enumerations, decay to integers requires explicit cast - No decay of arrays to pointers, &array[0] required for pointer conversion - References (no need to pass around pointers for out parameters) - bound checked arrays, for Assembly like performance use #pragma or compiler switch to disabled them I could remember a few more, this are just a few examples. However, we already had these features out of the box in C++ in 1993 when I used for the first time[0], hence why I never was a big C fan. [0] - To honest some of them required writing classes and overloading operators, but they were there.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      >Actually I would enjoy C, if the language just had a few things from Wirth side: ...Which is pretty much my point: You don't like C, because it didn't take from Wirth enough. Do you have some kind of program that automatically notifies you whenever your name gets mentioned on HN? Because whenever I mention you, you show up within a day...
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        Hehe,no but it looks like a cool weekend idea.
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        "Which is pretty much my point: You don't like C, because it didn't take from Wirth enough." Close but not there yet. He doesn't like C because it ignored and still ignores basic, safety features on commonly-used operations. Wirth's stuff is often cited because it did safe one's as baseline, simple syntax/semantics, and for weak hardware. Closer to C than ALGOL, PL/0, and other languages we could cite that also had more safety. Telling a C programmer Thompson and Ritchie could've done ALGOL68 on a PDP-7 less believable than saying they could've done Modula-2 or something similar. ;) Note: I also can't overemphasize enough that the first language they actually designed, feature by feature, to replace C was a modification of Wirth's Oberon-2 with features like we're talking about. Their Go work is indeed reducing number of crashes and vulnerabilities in systems versus C work while performing fast and improving. Imagine if they just started with Wirth's stuff then kept it practical and long-lasting (unlike Wirth).
- tatterdemalion 10y ago
  I don't want this to be either a flamewar or stupid. The Rust community has a strong commitment to be welcoming and inclusive, and this means we try very hard to discourage bashing other languages (who could want to join a community that is constantly talking trash about the language they work in every day?). Despite this, a meme has been spreading, mainly among C programmers, that the Rust community does go around bashing other languages. This meme harms the work our community is doing and is not supported by evidence. Also, I find the criticism of C you responded to quite valid, not "talking smack." It is a problem with C that it has several basic functions which are deprecated for security issues. This is a problem that C has much more than most other languages.

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago

This is very quickly devolving into a stupid flamewar, assuming it isn't already there. This is a thread about Rust error messages. When someone describes useful C warnings messages and someone follows up with criticism for C even making situations where those warnings are possible in such a thread, it's pretty reasonable to make the connection. What's your problem, dude?

oldmanjay 10y ago
I don't think the issue was that you made a connection to Rust. The issue seems to be that you used it as an excuse to rant about a tangent with an aggressive tone in article that will attract proponents of the target of your rant. In other words, it didn't devolve into a flamewar, because that's where you started it out.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Drew, you're actually wrong here. Safe systems languages predate Rust by quite a while, most of them being in the Wirth family (Modula, Oberon, etc.). Given that here at HN, we have a large constituency of Lisp Hackers and Unix Haters (as in the handbook), if somebody talks about how C is junk, and how safe systems languages should be used instead (esp. if that person is pjmlp, nickpsecurity, or lispm), they are likely referring to those, not Rust. So not a reasonable connection to make, if you know a bit more of the context. I certainly don't blame you for making the jump, but I seem to be in the minority.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Great analysis. The thread he links actually corroborates it, too. I've even found a few more safer, system languages since then that may be featured in future lists or threads. To be fair to me, though, note that I also heavily promote memory-safe C (eg Softbound, SAFEcode), memory-safe UNIX (CheriBSD, SVA-OS), and user-mode UNIX (eg seperation kernels, GenodeOS) to help UNIX/C users reduce serious problems they might encounter. I just default on countering root causes of problems as first resort. ;)
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    I didn't know that about you. However, I would say that you probably fall under UNIX-Hater nonetheless. Not that that is a bad thing, it's merely a statement about your opinions and ideals. I will totally have to check out some of those project now. Although I do wonder why Cyclone, the project that inspired Rust, wasn't on your list for memory-safe C.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      Oh yeah, I've linked to original and ESR's interpretation of UNIX Hater Handbook. Like I said, great analysis minus that one aspect of my posts here. :) Far as recommendations, putting my name and those terms into Google gives me six hits on HN where I recommend them both. In several, I push alternatives like microkernels, SPARK, and Rust plus those if person stays with C. In reply to ZeroTier developer, I reference Code-Pointer Integrity too while pointing out he's less safe with C++ because he can't use these C features. Ironic. "Although I do wonder why Cyclone, the project that inspired Rust, wasn't on your list for memory-safe C." I get 47 hits on that as I give Morissett et al's work plenty credit. Often when someone says Rust did the dynamic safety first where I counter they got it from Cyclone. Reason I don't push Cyclone so much is it isn't actively developed any more like most safer C's. C people just ignore them. Others included Safe-C, Clay, and Vault languages although I don't think all of them were OSS'd. Many non-C languages also compiled to C to get portability and performance benefits while app gets type-checked or other checks (eg bounds). Hardly any take-up there either. At this point, I just recommend them putting work into compiler extensions that make C safer with reasonable performance hits. SAFEcode already in LLVM, too.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Thanks for the hint, getting famous :) Actually I would enjoy C, if the language just had a few things from Wirth side: - Real enumerations, decay to integers requires explicit cast - No decay of arrays to pointers, &array[0] required for pointer conversion - References (no need to pass around pointers for out parameters) - bound checked arrays, for Assembly like performance use #pragma or compiler switch to disabled them I could remember a few more, this are just a few examples. However, we already had these features out of the box in C++ in 1993 when I used for the first time[0], hence why I never was a big C fan. [0] - To honest some of them required writing classes and overloading operators, but they were there.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    >Actually I would enjoy C, if the language just had a few things from Wirth side: ...Which is pretty much my point: You don't like C, because it didn't take from Wirth enough. Do you have some kind of program that automatically notifies you whenever your name gets mentioned on HN? Because whenever I mention you, you show up within a day...
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      Hehe,no but it looks like a cool weekend idea.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      "Which is pretty much my point: You don't like C, because it didn't take from Wirth enough." Close but not there yet. He doesn't like C because it ignored and still ignores basic, safety features on commonly-used operations. Wirth's stuff is often cited because it did safe one's as baseline, simple syntax/semantics, and for weak hardware. Closer to C than ALGOL, PL/0, and other languages we could cite that also had more safety. Telling a C programmer Thompson and Ritchie could've done ALGOL68 on a PDP-7 less believable than saying they could've done Modula-2 or something similar. ;) Note: I also can't overemphasize enough that the first language they actually designed, feature by feature, to replace C was a modification of Wirth's Oberon-2 with features like we're talking about. Their Go work is indeed reducing number of crashes and vulnerabilities in systems versus C work while performing fast and improving. Imagine if they just started with Wirth's stuff then kept it practical and long-lasting (unlike Wirth).
tatterdemalion 10y ago
I don't want this to be either a flamewar or stupid. The Rust community has a strong commitment to be welcoming and inclusive, and this means we try very hard to discourage bashing other languages (who could want to join a community that is constantly talking trash about the language they work in every day?). Despite this, a meme has been spreading, mainly among C programmers, that the Rust community does go around bashing other languages. This meme harms the work our community is doing and is not supported by evidence. Also, I find the criticism of C you responded to quite valid, not "talking smack." It is a problem with C that it has several basic functions which are deprecated for security issues. This is a problem that C has much more than most other languages.