9 ms·

Do you see any reason why it won't eventually do so?

• runevault 9y ago
  Even if it is objectively better in every way (not saying it is, only going for the most extreme end point for purposes of making a point) it is not guaranteed to replace C. Too many people have invested too much time mastering C and learning to deal with its quirks to simply give it up. There may come a day where basically 0 new C projects are made. I do not think that will be in my lifetime. And I say that as someone with near 0 investment in the language but intends to get more serious about learning rust in the near future.
  • pjmlp 9y ago
    Until we replace UNIX derived OSes and throw away POSIX compatibility that day will never come.
    • mmstick 9y ago
      We've already thrown away POSIX compatibility. Linux isn't POSIX. Mac OS X isn't POSIX. Windows isn't POSIX. POSIX only continues to exist in varying degrees at different times.
• 2trill2spill 9y ago
  I mean it might eventually happen but currently hardware support, vendor support, also all major Unix operating system implementations are written in C and the maintainers don't look like they will change anytime soon. Also C has lot's of inertia behind it.
• maxxxxx 9y ago
  The other question is whether there actually is a reason that it will eventually do so. I personally have my doubts. C has found that perfect sweet spot between not getting in the way of doing things and running on almost any platform. Rust still has to achieve that status and judging from other competitors like C++/D it seems hard to get to that point. Heck, even Java was advertised as systems language on Java CPUs for a while.
  • pjmlp 9y ago
    Well, Java is the systems language on Android that has full exposure to what app developers can actually use. NDK is quite constrained, mostly as a means to implement Java native methods. On Android Things they went one step further and the user space drivers are written in Java. With Treble it is also possible to write drivers in Java thanks to the new micro-kernel like architecture.
  • kbenson 9y ago
    > The other question is whether there actually is a reason that it will eventually do so. I personally have my doubts. C has found that perfect sweet spot between not getting in the way of doing things and running on almost any platform. That is the question. The way I see it, Rust's attractiveness to C developers goes up considerably the more accountable they are for the code they ship. If IoT and embedded devices start having repercussions for out of date, exploitable firmware/services, either through public opinion, legal or legislative means, making a switch to a language that provides more guarantees starts to look a lot more feasible and attractive to a lot of C die-hards.
    • maxxxxx 9y ago
      I think more importantly Rust has to clearly demonstrate that it really is better for projects that use C currently. I think the failure of wider adoption of D is a good case study.
      • kbenson 9y ago
        > I think more importantly Rust has to clearly demonstrate that it really is better for projects that use C currently. I halfway agree. More evidence is always welcome, but the nature of that evidence will almost always be subjective, and I'm not sure a lot of language adherents even care all that much when the evidence is objective. So more is better, but "clearly demonstrate" may be pie in the sky thinking. > I think the failure of wider adoption of D is a good case study. I always considered D interesting, but not worth the effort for the gains it offered. A more ergonomic C/C++ is nice, but ergonomics just steer you the right way, they're a far cry from preventing a while class of errors. A GC does offer some help in that direction, but comes with a clear continuous cost. Compiler level error prevention with zero cost abstractions comes across as something a bit more new and novel, and changes the cost/benefit analysis some. It's now a one-time up-front cost, with the possibility that the cost will lesson over time as you become more accustomed to the language. From an outsider's perspective, Nim was actually a lot more attractive than D as a replacement for C/C++. The cost seems almost negligible since it compiles to C, which makes the benefit fairly good (if overall of less magnitude than I perceive the benefit of Rust to be).
• steveklabnik 9y ago
  It's still too early. There's tons of good reasons to write C code today for many projects. Furthermore, there's so much C code out there that even if nobody wrote a single new line of C today, it'd be decades before it would go away. It's really about growing the pie rather than replacement anyway, in my opinion.
  • carlmr 9y ago
    >even if nobody wrote a single new line of C today, it'd be decades before it would go away. But then we can get sweet sweet COBOL level salaries in 40 years.
  • mmstick 9y ago
    Although, a lot of us are working towards replacement of C in a lot of areas. Being able to say you've written something in Rust is one thing, but having the whole stack Rust all the way down is something else. Not to mention, it's fairly simple to create C bindings from Rust libraries using Cargo workspaces and cbindgen.