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I think Rust has the mindshare, what it needs is people actually doing it. Redox is a ground up OS, but I wonder if we shouldn't instead be taking more of an O

I think Rust has the mindshare, what it needs is people actually doing it. Redox is a ground up OS, but I wonder if we shouldn't instead be taking more of an Oxidization approach where we rewrite more and more pieces of an existing OS in Rust piecemeal. This would add some overhead (programmatically not instructionwise) of a lot of context switches though between the C and the Rust code, which is to say it would be a little ugly for a while. It might be cleaner to go after a microkernel to do this though, like L4 or rumprun.

rbanffy 10y ago
MkLinux was a popular environment on a portal I worked for in the late 90s. We brought dozens of Macs back into active duty as secondary workstations for the operations team.
smsm42 10y ago
> I think Rust has the mindshare, what it needs is people actually doing it. That's kind of the opposite of having the mindshare, IMO :) Having the mindshare means people would be reaching for it when they need things done, not have to be dragged in, and there's a wide pool of people knowing it. I'm pretty sure you can write OS kernel in almost any language that can be compiled into runnable code, and probably if you are really determined also in those that are compiled into bytecode. As I said, it's not the main issue. Unless you are a titan of programming that can do an OS project all by yourself, or have more money than Google, you'll need random people to come to the project, pick up pieces and work on them. The question is, does Rust have pool of people wide enough so that probability of people wanting to work on your project is higher than your needs? C definitely has a huge pool. So do C++, Java, JS, Python and many other languages. Rust? I'm not sure it does so far. Maybe I'm wrong.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  Remember, Rust is just a year old. There are already a few OS projects going in it. All the languages you mentioned are >10 years old. I think for its age, the success it already enjoys is impressive.
  - IgorPartola 10y ago
    I would then say that it has momentum, not mindshare.
  - smsm42 10y ago
    It's not a criticism of the qualities of Rust. It's just an assessment of the current state of affairs. Maybe Rust will gain the mindshare in 3 years. We'll see. I personally think having something better than C but as ubiquitous and supported as C would be awesome. Is it Rust? We'll see in 5 years.

rbanffy 10y ago

MkLinux was a popular environment on a portal I worked for in the late 90s. We brought dozens of Macs back into active duty as secondary workstations for the operations team.

smsm42 10y ago

> I think Rust has the mindshare, what it needs is people actually doing it. That's kind of the opposite of having the mindshare, IMO :) Having the mindshare means people would be reaching for it when they need things done, not have to be dragged in, and there's a wide pool of people knowing it. I'm pretty sure you can write OS kernel in almost any language that can be compiled into runnable code, and probably if you are really determined also in those that are compiled into bytecode. As I said, it's not the main issue. Unless you are a titan of programming that can do an OS project all by yourself, or have more money than Google, you'll need random people to come to the project, pick up pieces and work on them. The question is, does Rust have pool of people wide enough so that probability of people wanting to work on your project is higher than your needs? C definitely has a huge pool. So do C++, Java, JS, Python and many other languages. Rust? I'm not sure it does so far. Maybe I'm wrong.

bluejekyll 10y ago
Remember, Rust is just a year old. There are already a few OS projects going in it. All the languages you mentioned are >10 years old. I think for its age, the success it already enjoys is impressive.
- IgorPartola 10y ago
  I would then say that it has momentum, not mindshare.
- smsm42 10y ago
  It's not a criticism of the qualities of Rust. It's just an assessment of the current state of affairs. Maybe Rust will gain the mindshare in 3 years. We'll see. I personally think having something better than C but as ubiquitous and supported as C would be awesome. Is it Rust? We'll see in 5 years.