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Rust is akin to the JS framework du jour in respect to safe languages: overpaid bored engineers started a project without bothering checking existing work or di

Rust is akin to the JS framework du jour in respect to safe languages: overpaid bored engineers started a project without bothering checking existing work or dismissing what they found, then they market the resulting (still unfinished) language as something radically new and solving most programming language issues. Some people followed because of the novelty effect and the company that spanned it, which allowed for the hype train to start in places like NH. Rust is a social phenomenon not a technical one. (This post is sponsored by the Rust Paganization Strike Force)

c-cube 6y ago
That is just incorrect. Ada seems pretty nice, but it does not have a borrow checker, does it? I think deallocation is considered unsafe? Documentation points to [Unchecked_Deallocation](https://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/arm12/html/arm12/arm12-13-11-2.html https://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/arm12/html/arm12/arm12-13...) . Rust has automatic (as in, you don't even need to call `free()`), safe deallocation of resources. Of course, the syntax, ergonomics, and the modern looking website and documentation also helped rust become popular, but it is technically new (for a mainstream language).
- OneWingedShark 6y ago
  > Ada seems pretty nice, but it does not have a borrow checker, does it? IIUC, there is a SPARK implementation that does: https://blog.adacore.com/using-pointers-in-spark https://blog.adacore.com/using-pointers-in-spark / https://www.adacore.com/uploads/techPapers/Safe-Dynamic-Memory-Management-in-Ada-and-SPARK.pdf https://www.adacore.com/uploads/techPapers/Safe-Dynamic-Memo... That said, there are whole classes of problems where, thanks to Ada's design, you don't even NEED pointers where you would in C or similar languages: http://video.fosdem.org/2016/aw1124/memory-management-with-ada-2012.webm http://video.fosdem.org/2016/aw1124/memory-management-with-a... > I think deallocation is considered unsafe? This too depends; Ada was designed so that a garbage-collector could be used, even in Ada83, most implementations do not take advantage of this. (There are JVM and DOTNET implementations where GC is required though.) To achieve safe deallocation it is often delegated to scopes so that exiting a scope clears out all the memory you were using; see stack-allocation, pools/subpools, and local-declarations/inline-declarations.

c-cube 6y ago

That is just incorrect. Ada seems pretty nice, but it does not have a borrow checker, does it? I think deallocation is considered unsafe? Documentation points to [Unchecked_Deallocation](https://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/arm12/html/arm12/arm12-13-11-2.html https://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/arm12/html/arm12/arm12-13...) . Rust has automatic (as in, you don't even need to call `free()`), safe deallocation of resources. Of course, the syntax, ergonomics, and the modern looking website and documentation also helped rust become popular, but it is technically new (for a mainstream language).

OneWingedShark 6y ago
> Ada seems pretty nice, but it does not have a borrow checker, does it? IIUC, there is a SPARK implementation that does: https://blog.adacore.com/using-pointers-in-spark https://blog.adacore.com/using-pointers-in-spark / https://www.adacore.com/uploads/techPapers/Safe-Dynamic-Memory-Management-in-Ada-and-SPARK.pdf https://www.adacore.com/uploads/techPapers/Safe-Dynamic-Memo... That said, there are whole classes of problems where, thanks to Ada's design, you don't even NEED pointers where you would in C or similar languages: http://video.fosdem.org/2016/aw1124/memory-management-with-ada-2012.webm http://video.fosdem.org/2016/aw1124/memory-management-with-a... > I think deallocation is considered unsafe? This too depends; Ada was designed so that a garbage-collector could be used, even in Ada83, most implementations do not take advantage of this. (There are JVM and DOTNET implementations where GC is required though.) To achieve safe deallocation it is often delegated to scopes so that exiting a scope clears out all the memory you were using; see stack-allocation, pools/subpools, and local-declarations/inline-declarations.