7 ms·

Sounds like the start of something good. Though the comments feel a bit weird. Maybe it's just a strange day for some reason, but I feel like today, I've seen a

by ufmace 7y ago

Sounds like the start of something good. Though the comments feel a bit weird. Maybe it's just a strange day for some reason, but I feel like today, I've seen an awful lot of comments from people pushing rewriting things in Rust who know absolutely nothing about the code they're asking about or the problem domain it runs in. I mean, I personally think Rust is cool and all that, but come on, who does that?

gameswithgo 7y ago
This particular linux thing wouldn't involve rewriting anything in Rust.
- cryptonector 7y ago
  I don't know why you got downvoted. This is about new drivers. I suppose some existing drivers might later get rewritten, but that's later, when there's been more experience with it. In any case, FF shows that rewriting a complex C/C++ codebase in Rust bit by bit is feasible, though again, that doesn't seem to be the intent in this case.
  - anaphor 7y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but these drivers wouldn't be merged into the kernel tree itself, right? They would be written as modules. I doubt any of the core developers would feel comfortable reviewing Rust code at this time.
    - nwmcsween 7y ago
      About zero chance of rust drivers being merged into the kernel now or in the near future.
  - notyourday 7y ago
    FF shows that new language advocates are as usual out to lunch. It is as if everyone forgot the time when the Netscape ruled the web but some clowns decided they want to rewrite it and make it more awesome driving its market share to nearly zero and company out of business. Mozilla should have continued to re-iterate on FF code, slowly but surely improving it rather than going "Oh look, we can make it soooo much better with this new awesome language" P.S. The really funny part is that it is basically the exactly same project that is engaging in another "rewrite" just with different corporate owners.
    - jcranmer 7y ago
      The Netscape rewrite was a complete tossing of the codebase, starting from scratch on virtually every component of the web browser and internal implementation details. It wasn't the start of the troubles, but it did make things worse. Mozilla isn't doing that today. The current code is being "slowly but surely improved," and the use of Rust is largely happening only in new components (and not all new components are being written in Rust!). There's very little gratuitous conversion of C++ code to Rust.
      - notyourday 7y ago
        > Mozilla isn't doing that today. The current code is being "slowly but surely improved," and the use of Rust is largely happening only in new components (and not all new components are being written in Rust!). There's very little gratuitous conversion of C++ code to Rust. So one can build FF without Rust? Because if the answer is "Not any more" then it is a beginning of a rewrite, just done slower.
        jcranmer 7y ago
        It is not the beginning of a rewrite just because Firefox requires Rust. All that it means is that there are now three languages you can choose to use to implement Firefox components, instead of just two. You're conflating the ability to choose Rust in addition to C/C++ with the intent to replace C/C++ code with Rust.
        notyourday 7y ago
        Not at all. There was a state X, where to build FF one needed to use a certain tool chain. The new state is Y. To build FF one now has to use two tool chains: the previous one and the new one. Not having either of those tool chains prevents the build. That's a definition of a beginning of a rewrite. And it is an incredibly dumb idea from a business perspective which will bite Mozilla in the ass in the future because it is increasing the build complexity today and tomorrow for some pie in the sky promise that may or may not pan out in future. I'm not saying "Don't use Rust for a new project". I'm saying that the software industry is littered with the corpses of entities that decided to add a new way of doing something to an existing project where it did not pan out.
diesal11 7y ago
Sounds like a normal day in the Rust community to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
drewm1980 7y ago
I wouldn't assume the commenters are young, but if they are, attracting new blood to kernel development is a good thing, right? Especially if the new blood is prevented by the language from introducing memory errors :)
- jacquesm 7y ago
  New blood and the kernel sound like a great combination for problems. There are many more kinds of errors that people could make besides memory errors. Linux powers a good portion of the world, the vetting of kernel contributors should be done accordingly and the processes put in place should be strong enough that even if 'young and new blood' makes contributions that these are reviewed with a keen eye to all the lessons learned over the years, something those new and young people will still need to do. I'm all for including newcomers into important open source projects but the kernel is the one place where I would expect some experience to be a requirement before contributing simply to avoid overloading the people further up the chain with a stream of obvious errors.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been under the impression that kernel contributors are not vetted? Only patches are vetted.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      That would open up the kernel to malicious contributions. It is always a good idea to know who your counterparty is. There is good precedent to warrant such vigilance: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24165-how-nsa-weakens-encryption-to-access-internet-traffic/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24165-how-nsa-weakens... Accidents can never be ruled out but a malicious operator will have far less chance of getting away with something when detected early.
    - rcxdude 7y ago
      You are mostly correct, there's no real barrier to just anyone submitting a patch. However, the kernel does have a rule against anonymous or pseudonymous contributions, mainly for licensing clarity reasons (not that you need to submit any form of proof of identity).
JoshTriplett 7y ago
For the record, as one of the developers on the Rust project: we consider that kind of over-the-top evangelism counterproductive and unwelcome. Note that in the talk that inspired this news, I specifically said that I wasn't there to push Rust, just there to explain how I'm working to make Rust an option for more people and projects. Even if you want people to use more Rust, that kind of aggressive evangelism doesn't serve you well, and people find it off-putting.
jkelleyrtp 7y ago
While all code shouldn't be rewritten in the "next-best-thing," there might be merit in rewriting some bug-prone code that expands the security vulnerability surface area. The borrowchecker and other safety mechanisms can help new and potentially unsecure code be just a little bit safer without significant external vetting.
masklinn 7y ago
> I mean, I personally think Rust is cool and all that, but come on, who does that? Some people have an LDS complex (they've found their messiah and want to spread the word). Apparently there's also people who've decided that over-the-top inane "evangelisation" was a good troll and way to turn people off. A significant number of PL threads on /r/programming have a comment attempting this sort of shit-stirring.
- LandR 7y ago
  LDS ?
  - masklinn 7y ago
    The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. AKA Mormon Church, who are pretty famous for their door-to-door proselytisation.
- Razengan 7y ago
  > Some people have an LDS complex (they've found their messiah and want to spread the word). Or, some craftspeople/artisans prefer tools that are a joy for them to use instead of just a means to an end, and have the luxury to choose what they work with.
  - __s 7y ago
    He's referring to people who open issues on random projects asking the project owners to RIIR. These people often don't create much on their own, so they're pushing a "I can't help this cool project because it's not using a language like Rust that would make me capable of contributing, if they rewrote it in Rust then they'd have the reward of my presence in their codebase" when in reality language choice is a small hill to climb I was recently having someone do this on a web project of mine that's written entirely in ES6 Javascript
danellis 7y ago
> but come on, who does that? Yesterday Go, today Rust.
- ansible 7y ago
  I'm certainly guilty of thinking that. I don't think I've actually been pushing the "rewrite all the things in Go" thing though. I'm also guilty of thinking language X is the next big thing, and that I should use it for everything. And that's happened more than a few times: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Python, Haskell, Lua, Go. So having said all that, I really do think that Rust is the next awesome thing. Like the others on the above list, Rust has certainly stretched my brain with new and better programming concepts. And I think it offers some solid benefits that few other programming languages are providing right now. Its also interesting to start to see other languages like Swift incorporate concepts from Rust.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    There's nothing wrong with Go, in its proper domain! Heck, maybe the typical program written in a GC'd "scripting"-like language should be rewritten in Go. Rust is nice, but sometimes you really can't do without a GC.
  - layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
    >I'm also guilty of thinking language X is the next big thing, and that I should use it for everything. And that's happened more than a few times: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Python, Haskell, Lua, Go. >So having said all that, I really do think that Rust is the next awesome thing. This is sounds like something straight out of r/programmingcirclejerk
  - fortran77 7y ago
    I remember, 25 years ago, we wanted to re-write everything in Oberon.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Then Java was announced to the world. :(

by ufmace 7y ago

gameswithgo 7y ago

This particular linux thing wouldn't involve rewriting anything in Rust.

cryptonector 7y ago
I don't know why you got downvoted. This is about new drivers. I suppose some existing drivers might later get rewritten, but that's later, when there's been more experience with it. In any case, FF shows that rewriting a complex C/C++ codebase in Rust bit by bit is feasible, though again, that doesn't seem to be the intent in this case.
- anaphor 7y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but these drivers wouldn't be merged into the kernel tree itself, right? They would be written as modules. I doubt any of the core developers would feel comfortable reviewing Rust code at this time.
  - nwmcsween 7y ago
    About zero chance of rust drivers being merged into the kernel now or in the near future.
- notyourday 7y ago
  FF shows that new language advocates are as usual out to lunch. It is as if everyone forgot the time when the Netscape ruled the web but some clowns decided they want to rewrite it and make it more awesome driving its market share to nearly zero and company out of business. Mozilla should have continued to re-iterate on FF code, slowly but surely improving it rather than going "Oh look, we can make it soooo much better with this new awesome language" P.S. The really funny part is that it is basically the exactly same project that is engaging in another "rewrite" just with different corporate owners.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    The Netscape rewrite was a complete tossing of the codebase, starting from scratch on virtually every component of the web browser and internal implementation details. It wasn't the start of the troubles, but it did make things worse. Mozilla isn't doing that today. The current code is being "slowly but surely improved," and the use of Rust is largely happening only in new components (and not all new components are being written in Rust!). There's very little gratuitous conversion of C++ code to Rust.
    - notyourday 7y ago
      > Mozilla isn't doing that today. The current code is being "slowly but surely improved," and the use of Rust is largely happening only in new components (and not all new components are being written in Rust!). There's very little gratuitous conversion of C++ code to Rust. So one can build FF without Rust? Because if the answer is "Not any more" then it is a beginning of a rewrite, just done slower.
      - jcranmer 7y ago
        It is not the beginning of a rewrite just because Firefox requires Rust. All that it means is that there are now three languages you can choose to use to implement Firefox components, instead of just two. You're conflating the ability to choose Rust in addition to C/C++ with the intent to replace C/C++ code with Rust.
        notyourday 7y ago
        Not at all. There was a state X, where to build FF one needed to use a certain tool chain. The new state is Y. To build FF one now has to use two tool chains: the previous one and the new one. Not having either of those tool chains prevents the build. That's a definition of a beginning of a rewrite. And it is an incredibly dumb idea from a business perspective which will bite Mozilla in the ass in the future because it is increasing the build complexity today and tomorrow for some pie in the sky promise that may or may not pan out in future. I'm not saying "Don't use Rust for a new project". I'm saying that the software industry is littered with the corpses of entities that decided to add a new way of doing something to an existing project where it did not pan out.

diesal11 7y ago

Sounds like a normal day in the Rust community to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

drewm1980 7y ago

I wouldn't assume the commenters are young, but if they are, attracting new blood to kernel development is a good thing, right? Especially if the new blood is prevented by the language from introducing memory errors :)

jacquesm 7y ago
New blood and the kernel sound like a great combination for problems. There are many more kinds of errors that people could make besides memory errors. Linux powers a good portion of the world, the vetting of kernel contributors should be done accordingly and the processes put in place should be strong enough that even if 'young and new blood' makes contributions that these are reviewed with a keen eye to all the lessons learned over the years, something those new and young people will still need to do. I'm all for including newcomers into important open source projects but the kernel is the one place where I would expect some experience to be a requirement before contributing simply to avoid overloading the people further up the chain with a stream of obvious errors.
- majewsky 7y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been under the impression that kernel contributors are not vetted? Only patches are vetted.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    That would open up the kernel to malicious contributions. It is always a good idea to know who your counterparty is. There is good precedent to warrant such vigilance: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24165-how-nsa-weakens-encryption-to-access-internet-traffic/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24165-how-nsa-weakens... Accidents can never be ruled out but a malicious operator will have far less chance of getting away with something when detected early.
  - rcxdude 7y ago
    You are mostly correct, there's no real barrier to just anyone submitting a patch. However, the kernel does have a rule against anonymous or pseudonymous contributions, mainly for licensing clarity reasons (not that you need to submit any form of proof of identity).

JoshTriplett 7y ago

For the record, as one of the developers on the Rust project: we consider that kind of over-the-top evangelism counterproductive and unwelcome. Note that in the talk that inspired this news, I specifically said that I wasn't there to push Rust, just there to explain how I'm working to make Rust an option for more people and projects. Even if you want people to use more Rust, that kind of aggressive evangelism doesn't serve you well, and people find it off-putting.

jkelleyrtp 7y ago

While all code shouldn't be rewritten in the "next-best-thing," there might be merit in rewriting some bug-prone code that expands the security vulnerability surface area. The borrowchecker and other safety mechanisms can help new and potentially unsecure code be just a little bit safer without significant external vetting.

masklinn 7y ago

> I mean, I personally think Rust is cool and all that, but come on, who does that? Some people have an LDS complex (they've found their messiah and want to spread the word). Apparently there's also people who've decided that over-the-top inane "evangelisation" was a good troll and way to turn people off. A significant number of PL threads on /r/programming have a comment attempting this sort of shit-stirring.

LandR 7y ago
LDS ?
- masklinn 7y ago
  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. AKA Mormon Church, who are pretty famous for their door-to-door proselytisation.
Razengan 7y ago
> Some people have an LDS complex (they've found their messiah and want to spread the word). Or, some craftspeople/artisans prefer tools that are a joy for them to use instead of just a means to an end, and have the luxury to choose what they work with.
- __s 7y ago
  He's referring to people who open issues on random projects asking the project owners to RIIR. These people often don't create much on their own, so they're pushing a "I can't help this cool project because it's not using a language like Rust that would make me capable of contributing, if they rewrote it in Rust then they'd have the reward of my presence in their codebase" when in reality language choice is a small hill to climb I was recently having someone do this on a web project of mine that's written entirely in ES6 Javascript

danellis 7y ago

> but come on, who does that? Yesterday Go, today Rust.

ansible 7y ago
I'm certainly guilty of thinking that. I don't think I've actually been pushing the "rewrite all the things in Go" thing though. I'm also guilty of thinking language X is the next big thing, and that I should use it for everything. And that's happened more than a few times: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Python, Haskell, Lua, Go. So having said all that, I really do think that Rust is the next awesome thing. Like the others on the above list, Rust has certainly stretched my brain with new and better programming concepts. And I think it offers some solid benefits that few other programming languages are providing right now. Its also interesting to start to see other languages like Swift incorporate concepts from Rust.
- 0815test 7y ago
  There's nothing wrong with Go, in its proper domain! Heck, maybe the typical program written in a GC'd "scripting"-like language should be rewritten in Go. Rust is nice, but sometimes you really can't do without a GC.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
  >I'm also guilty of thinking language X is the next big thing, and that I should use it for everything. And that's happened more than a few times: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Python, Haskell, Lua, Go. >So having said all that, I really do think that Rust is the next awesome thing. This is sounds like something straight out of r/programmingcirclejerk
- fortran77 7y ago
  I remember, 25 years ago, we wanted to re-write everything in Oberon.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Then Java was announced to the world. :(