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Naive question: why is it important, compared to the developed features and new architecture?

by Cynddl 7y ago

oregontechninja 7y ago
Because development of this particular project has been a large driving force of Mozilla's interaction with Rust.
jerheinze 7y ago
Since Rust is a memory safe language with nearly the same performance as C
- frutiger 7y ago
  EDIT: Parent commenter edited the comment to append "with the same performance as C", so you can ignore my reply. So is Python, JavaScript, Java, OCaml, Haskell... A more distinguishing feature of Rust is not only that it is memory safe but also that it doesn’t have a GC. In any case the presence of a single unsafe block can make the program no longer memory safe. Of course, if used appropriately, it vastly reduces the audit surface compared to something like C++.
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    None of those have nearly the same performance as C.
    - frutiger 7y ago
      GP edited the comment, so now my reply looks silly.
    - Cynddl 7y ago
      OCaml can have nearly the same performance as C.
  - chronogram 7y ago
    Is GC a negative? I’ve yet to see anyone go “well I would’ve written this in Golang but it’s got GC”. Even that new Windows driver style, where it’s split in two, can have half of it being GC’d, right? Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Frameworks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Frameworks at least.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > I’ve yet to see anyone go “well I would’ve written this in Golang but it’s got GC”. This is a dealbreaker in a lot of contexts where garbage collection pauses would be unacceptable.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      Yes, GC is a negative. There is a huge literature in measures to mitigate its negatives. These always involve trading off one against another, and libraries are frequently incompatible with any particular mix of them.
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      A GC is literally the only reason I haven't tried go.
pygy_ 7y ago
<rust-evangelism-strike-force> FEARLESS CONCURRENCY </rust-evangelism-strike-force> Rust makes it easier to write bug-free concurrent code. Webrender relies on this and I'm not sure Mozilla could have pulled it out in C++ in the same time frame, if at all.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  I think that's pretty presumptuous. My experience is that rust's checking is great, but much easier and safer concurrency can still be enabled by some work with data structures and program architecture.
  - throwupaway123 7y ago
    IMozilla engineers have specifically said Stylo (Quantum Style whatever) would be impossible in C++, because they actually tried it in C++. Presumably it'd be the same with WebRender.
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      Impossible is a strong word. Architecture makes a very big difference. They can claim it is impossible, but it really doesn't make sense. I'm surprised anyone would just take their word for it. Trying to use raw threads and ad-hoc futures is going to be difficult, but fundamentally concurrency is about separating data by dependencies. Dependency graphs that pass data around combined with lock free data structures can be used to isolate parts of the program so that dealing with concurrency is one generic part of the program.
mkl 7y ago
WebRender has come out of Mozilla's Servo browser engine project, which has had influence on the development of Rust itself. The language and the browser engine have been developed together, so this and other parts of the Quantum project [1] (mostly bringing parts of Servo into Firefox) are like the culmination of all this work, and a validation of the language. [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum

Naive question: why is it important, compared to the developed features and new architecture?

by Cynddl 7y ago

Naive question: why is it important, compared to the developed features and new architecture?

oregontechninja 7y ago

Because development of this particular project has been a large driving force of Mozilla's interaction with Rust.

jerheinze 7y ago

Since Rust is a memory safe language with nearly the same performance as C

frutiger 7y ago
EDIT: Parent commenter edited the comment to append "with the same performance as C", so you can ignore my reply. So is Python, JavaScript, Java, OCaml, Haskell... A more distinguishing feature of Rust is not only that it is memory safe but also that it doesn’t have a GC. In any case the presence of a single unsafe block can make the program no longer memory safe. Of course, if used appropriately, it vastly reduces the audit surface compared to something like C++.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  None of those have nearly the same performance as C.
  - frutiger 7y ago
    GP edited the comment, so now my reply looks silly.
  - Cynddl 7y ago
    OCaml can have nearly the same performance as C.
- chronogram 7y ago
  Is GC a negative? I’ve yet to see anyone go “well I would’ve written this in Golang but it’s got GC”. Even that new Windows driver style, where it’s split in two, can have half of it being GC’d, right? Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Frameworks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Frameworks at least.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > I’ve yet to see anyone go “well I would’ve written this in Golang but it’s got GC”. This is a dealbreaker in a lot of contexts where garbage collection pauses would be unacceptable.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    Yes, GC is a negative. There is a huge literature in measures to mitigate its negatives. These always involve trading off one against another, and libraries are frequently incompatible with any particular mix of them.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    A GC is literally the only reason I haven't tried go.

pygy_ 7y ago

<rust-evangelism-strike-force> FEARLESS CONCURRENCY </rust-evangelism-strike-force> Rust makes it easier to write bug-free concurrent code. Webrender relies on this and I'm not sure Mozilla could have pulled it out in C++ in the same time frame, if at all.

BubRoss 7y ago
I think that's pretty presumptuous. My experience is that rust's checking is great, but much easier and safer concurrency can still be enabled by some work with data structures and program architecture.
- throwupaway123 7y ago
  IMozilla engineers have specifically said Stylo (Quantum Style whatever) would be impossible in C++, because they actually tried it in C++. Presumably it'd be the same with WebRender.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    Impossible is a strong word. Architecture makes a very big difference. They can claim it is impossible, but it really doesn't make sense. I'm surprised anyone would just take their word for it. Trying to use raw threads and ad-hoc futures is going to be difficult, but fundamentally concurrency is about separating data by dependencies. Dependency graphs that pass data around combined with lock free data structures can be used to isolate parts of the program so that dealing with concurrency is one generic part of the program.

mkl 7y ago

WebRender has come out of Mozilla's Servo browser engine project, which has had influence on the development of Rust itself. The language and the browser engine have been developed together, so this and other parts of the Quantum project [1] (mostly bringing parts of Servo into Firefox) are like the culmination of all this work, and a validation of the language. [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum