5 ms·

What does "Rust-based" even mean? Inspired by Rust? Does it transpile to Rust or something? Very confusing phrasing to me...

jandrese 7y ago
Historically it means they would start with Rust and then add in just enough Windows proprietary stuff to make it not run on any other platform.
- cududa 7y ago
  Given their past years of behavior and focus on dev tools, what in the world makes you think that would be the case? They ported their chromium browser to every platform from day 1.
  - astrodust 7y ago
    Two words: Steve Ballmer.
    - danso 7y ago
      The former CEO who retired five years ago?
      - astrodust 7y ago
        Yes. That's why people are still super nervous whenever Microsoft dares to embrace something new. Past experience. I'm not saying they're like that today, but that's why some people get all on-edge when Microsoft does things like this.
        danso 7y ago
        But he’s not the CEO any longer and he hasn’t been for years. So why is what he did more than a decade ago relevant absent of evidence that he has any direct control of the company today?
        slightwinder 7y ago
        One CEO doesn't make an evil empire. Bad influence remains. Many evil minions that were forged from Bill Gates and then Steve Ballmer are still in the company. And ontop of this, Microsoft is still a big money-driven Company, so some natural evilness is always there. Microsoft has become better in the last years, but they still do bad things. So why should people trust the wholeheartly?
        sureaboutthis 7y ago
        He's only been gone for five years. The Titanic didn't turn fast enough to miss the iceberg either.
        astrodust 7y ago
        Many developers and entrepreneurs had numerous very bad experiences with the Microsoft of the 1990s-2000s and you're expecting them to just move on like nothing happened? Remember Microsoft tried to kill the internet and could have succeeded if it wasn't for the efforts of many, the US DOJ included, to prevent them from obtaining total control through their operating system monopoly. You can't go through that and not be skeptical.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- shmerl 7y ago
  Given MS history, EEE was the first thing I thought about too. Take something, extend, then claim it's superior and everyone should stop using the original. But if it simply means they are making a new language using lessons from Rust - then why not. Though I didn't quite get what problem they found with using the idea of scope based lifetimes per object, that they needed to redefine it in context of groups.
pmontra 7y ago
It's probably what they did with C#, starting from Java. I don't think there will be any compatibility, only high level similarity.
- patagurbon 7y ago
  Alternatively it could be what Microsoft Research does a lot which is take some subset of a language and add capabilities, like software verification with F*.
  - m4r35n357 7y ago
    Which is pretty much what the posts you replied to said.
david-cako 7y ago
On the road to R# I guess. I guess shipping Windows API cargo crates makes too much sense. Does anyone have any context for gaps in Rust they are addressing? In TFA it mentions that ownership will be based on groups of objects, but I’m not sure I understand what this solves that a struct doesn’t.
- tal8d 7y ago
  > I guess shipping Windows API cargo crates makes too much sense. Does anyone have any context for gaps in Rust they are addressing? I haven't finished digging through the OP, but it looks like a bunch of Microsoft employees (already aware of Rust's safety benefits) have started recognizing the commitment to FFI as well. My last project had a feature that depended on a bind to win32, which turned out to be the most time consuming aspect - as it demanded a bunch of tooling that was otherwise unnecessary (valgrind, etc). If they were to take stewardship of that interface, lots of unsafe{} would disappear overnight. https://kennykerr.ca/2019/11/05/rust/ https://kennykerr.ca/2019/11/05/rust/
steveklabnik 7y ago
It’s described as a completely new thing, that borrows some ideas from Rust.

jandrese 7y ago

Historically it means they would start with Rust and then add in just enough Windows proprietary stuff to make it not run on any other platform.

cududa 7y ago
Given their past years of behavior and focus on dev tools, what in the world makes you think that would be the case? They ported their chromium browser to every platform from day 1.
- astrodust 7y ago
  Two words: Steve Ballmer.
  - danso 7y ago
    The former CEO who retired five years ago?
    - astrodust 7y ago
      Yes. That's why people are still super nervous whenever Microsoft dares to embrace something new. Past experience. I'm not saying they're like that today, but that's why some people get all on-edge when Microsoft does things like this.
      - danso 7y ago
        But he’s not the CEO any longer and he hasn’t been for years. So why is what he did more than a decade ago relevant absent of evidence that he has any direct control of the company today?
        slightwinder 7y ago
        One CEO doesn't make an evil empire. Bad influence remains. Many evil minions that were forged from Bill Gates and then Steve Ballmer are still in the company. And ontop of this, Microsoft is still a big money-driven Company, so some natural evilness is always there. Microsoft has become better in the last years, but they still do bad things. So why should people trust the wholeheartly?
        sureaboutthis 7y ago
        He's only been gone for five years. The Titanic didn't turn fast enough to miss the iceberg either.
        astrodust 7y ago
        Many developers and entrepreneurs had numerous very bad experiences with the Microsoft of the 1990s-2000s and you're expecting them to just move on like nothing happened? Remember Microsoft tried to kill the internet and could have succeeded if it wasn't for the efforts of many, the US DOJ included, to prevent them from obtaining total control through their operating system monopoly. You can't go through that and not be skeptical.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
shmerl 7y ago
Given MS history, EEE was the first thing I thought about too. Take something, extend, then claim it's superior and everyone should stop using the original. But if it simply means they are making a new language using lessons from Rust - then why not. Though I didn't quite get what problem they found with using the idea of scope based lifetimes per object, that they needed to redefine it in context of groups.

pmontra 7y ago

It's probably what they did with C#, starting from Java. I don't think there will be any compatibility, only high level similarity.

patagurbon 7y ago
Alternatively it could be what Microsoft Research does a lot which is take some subset of a language and add capabilities, like software verification with F*.
- m4r35n357 7y ago
  Which is pretty much what the posts you replied to said.

david-cako 7y ago

On the road to R# I guess. I guess shipping Windows API cargo crates makes too much sense. Does anyone have any context for gaps in Rust they are addressing? In TFA it mentions that ownership will be based on groups of objects, but I’m not sure I understand what this solves that a struct doesn’t.

tal8d 7y ago
> I guess shipping Windows API cargo crates makes too much sense. Does anyone have any context for gaps in Rust they are addressing? I haven't finished digging through the OP, but it looks like a bunch of Microsoft employees (already aware of Rust's safety benefits) have started recognizing the commitment to FFI as well. My last project had a feature that depended on a bind to win32, which turned out to be the most time consuming aspect - as it demanded a bunch of tooling that was otherwise unnecessary (valgrind, etc). If they were to take stewardship of that interface, lots of unsafe{} would disappear overnight. https://kennykerr.ca/2019/11/05/rust/ https://kennykerr.ca/2019/11/05/rust/

steveklabnik 7y ago

It’s described as a completely new thing, that borrows some ideas from Rust.