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Non-Rust-user here. I tried Rust about a year ago and gave up on it as not ready. Unfortunately, I don't think this roadmap addresses the problems that made me

Non-Rust-user here. I tried Rust about a year ago and gave up on it as not ready. Unfortunately, I don't think this roadmap addresses the problems that made me reject it the first time around. The main problem I have with Rust is that it's not up to the task of dealing with C APIs, particularly POSIX. The issue I got stuck on was https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/47a0s3/dealing_with_variation_in_c_ffi_interfaces/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/47a0s3/dealing_with_v... . There are two possible things Rust could do that would make me give it a second chance: either commit to maintaining bindings for all of POSIX and libc as part of Rust core, or fold rust-bindgen into core and get it into shape. Creating higher-level libraries like Tokio is nice for some use cases, but right now Rust doesn't have a working safety valve for things C can do that Rust can't. This greatly magnifies problems like lack of bindings for select() (see http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7294&cpage=1 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7294&cpage=1 ; I too ran into that problem, and lost a few days to it.)

steveklabnik 10y ago
Did you try the nix crate? It looks like maybe not. It should have all of that stuff already wrapped for you. For example: https://docs.rs/nix/0.7.0/nix/sys/termios/fn.tcgetattr.html https://docs.rs/nix/0.7.0/nix/sys/termios/fn.tcgetattr.html (select is in there too https://docs.rs/nix/0.7.0/nix/sys/select/fn.select.html https://docs.rs/nix/0.7.0/nix/sys/select/fn.select.html ) rust-bindgen has been improving a ton, and it is in fact on that roadmap, under > Integration with other languages, running the gamut from C to JavaScript.
- jimrandomh 10y ago
  Happy to hear bindgen is getting attention; I didn't actually notice that when I looked through the roadmap. I didn't try the nix crate at the time, but looking at it just now - it doesn't solve the portability issue. It defines struct Termios in https://github.com/nix-rust/nix/blob/master/src/sys/termios.rs https://github.com/nix-rust/nix/blob/master/src/sys/termios.... , with something #ifdef-ish branching on operating system, but not on CPU architecture. On quick inspection, I think it's probably incorrect on x86-32, and this crate is definitely a major liability for portability.
  - steveklabnik 10y ago
    Sounds like you should open an issue; it's pretty much the crate for safe bindings, but as I'm sure you know, there's a lot of tiny details to get right. (Also, I'll stop here and only reply on our Reddit conversation, ha!)
    - jimrandomh 10y ago
      https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/5sg9d3/rusts_2017_roadmap/ddf5ly9/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/5sg9d3/rusts_2017_roa... (The first few comments are mirrored between here and Reddit.)

steveklabnik 10y ago

Did you try the nix crate? It looks like maybe not. It should have all of that stuff already wrapped for you. For example: https://docs.rs/nix/0.7.0/nix/sys/termios/fn.tcgetattr.html https://docs.rs/nix/0.7.0/nix/sys/termios/fn.tcgetattr.html (select is in there too https://docs.rs/nix/0.7.0/nix/sys/select/fn.select.html https://docs.rs/nix/0.7.0/nix/sys/select/fn.select.html ) rust-bindgen has been improving a ton, and it is in fact on that roadmap, under > Integration with other languages, running the gamut from C to JavaScript.

jimrandomh 10y ago
Happy to hear bindgen is getting attention; I didn't actually notice that when I looked through the roadmap. I didn't try the nix crate at the time, but looking at it just now - it doesn't solve the portability issue. It defines struct Termios in https://github.com/nix-rust/nix/blob/master/src/sys/termios.rs https://github.com/nix-rust/nix/blob/master/src/sys/termios.... , with something #ifdef-ish branching on operating system, but not on CPU architecture. On quick inspection, I think it's probably incorrect on x86-32, and this crate is definitely a major liability for portability.
- steveklabnik 10y ago
  Sounds like you should open an issue; it's pretty much the crate for safe bindings, but as I'm sure you know, there's a lot of tiny details to get right. (Also, I'll stop here and only reply on our Reddit conversation, ha!)
  - jimrandomh 10y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/5sg9d3/rusts_2017_roadmap/ddf5ly9/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/5sg9d3/rusts_2017_roa... (The first few comments are mirrored between here and Reddit.)