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> My take is that Rust is proposed based on the value proposition of its Safe Rust feature, but in the Linux kernel that feature has limited use. Where does yo

> My take is that Rust is proposed based on the value proposition of its Safe Rust feature, but in the Linux kernel that feature has limited use. Where does your take come from? Everyone I've heard of proposing Rust for the Linux kernel does so almost exclusively by making the argument that Rust can create safe performant abstractions over unsafe code. That is, instead of requiring all Linux kernels programmers to be deeply familiar with RCU, you can have a small group of RCU experts create a safe abstraction over RCU, that then all other Linux kernel programmers can just use, without having to understand very deeply how it works. If they make a mistake, their code won't compile, and the error message explains why and how to fix it. This is a huge productivity boost for large complex projects, and a huge safety boost since these abstractions prevent a large set of security vulnerabilities, and these are the main reason I've seen people to use to introduce Rust into the Linux kernel. The fact that Rust does this with minimal - often zero - runtime overhead is a requirement for the kernel. But even for abstractions for which this is not the case, it still allows people to only have to become an expert when they want to improve performance, and any use of unsafe immediately triggers a requirement for such code to be reviewed by the actual experts. This is also a huge boon for these experts, since it substantially reduces the code they have to review. E.g. now they only have to review uses of the "unsafe RCU" APIs, instead of also having to review the uses of the safe RCU APIs, which is the case today. And also a big boon typically for the project in general, since it is much easier to attract "newbies" if there is stuff they can break. A newbie hacking on the linux kernel 20 years ago had much much much less to learn to become proficient than a newbie today. Reducing what newbies have to learn is a surprisingly effective way to increasing the contributor base of a project.

nuerow 5y ago
> Where does your take come from? From this very discussion, for starters. > Everyone I've heard of proposing Rust for the Linux kernel does so almost exclusively by making the argument that Rust can create safe performant abstractions over unsafe code. The whole point is that the same thing (creating safe abstractions over unsafe code) is what developers have been doing with C for close to half a century. Therefore, there must be a value proposition regarding the use of Rust other than Safe Rust. I haven't heard one so far. In fact, I've read the exact opposite, such as compilers needing rewrites to accommodate that usecase. Thus, with Safe Rust out of the table, what exactly is Rust's value proposition? > This is a huge productivity boost for large complex projects, and a huge safety boost since these abstractions prevent a large set of security vulnerabilities, and these are the main reason I've seen people to use to introduce Rust into the Linux kernel. I feel those baseless assertions require some supporting evidence. Is there actually any tangible and concrete evidence that Rust, specially Unsafe Rust, improves productivity and safety? I'd love to read about it.
- volta83 5y ago
  > The whole point is that the same thing (creating safe abstractions over unsafe code) is what developers have been doing with C for close to half a century. They have been trying to do this, but it doesn't work because C's support for this is very poor. Not even C++ managed to do this. Rust makes it easy to do this in a reliable and efficient way that is 100% guaranteed to work. > I feel those baseless assertions require some supporting evidence. Is there actually any tangible and concrete evidence that Rust, specially Unsafe Rust, improves productivity and safety? Yes, see: https://prev.rust-lang.org/en-US/whitepapers.html https://prev.rust-lang.org/en-US/whitepapers.html and https://www.rust-lang.org/production https://www.rust-lang.org/production , and well https://dl.acm.org/action/doSearch?AllField=Rust https://dl.acm.org/action/doSearch?AllField=Rust (there are a bunch of peer-reviewed papers there that show this, serve yourself).

nuerow 5y ago

> Where does your take come from? From this very discussion, for starters. > Everyone I've heard of proposing Rust for the Linux kernel does so almost exclusively by making the argument that Rust can create safe performant abstractions over unsafe code. The whole point is that the same thing (creating safe abstractions over unsafe code) is what developers have been doing with C for close to half a century. Therefore, there must be a value proposition regarding the use of Rust other than Safe Rust. I haven't heard one so far. In fact, I've read the exact opposite, such as compilers needing rewrites to accommodate that usecase. Thus, with Safe Rust out of the table, what exactly is Rust's value proposition? > This is a huge productivity boost for large complex projects, and a huge safety boost since these abstractions prevent a large set of security vulnerabilities, and these are the main reason I've seen people to use to introduce Rust into the Linux kernel. I feel those baseless assertions require some supporting evidence. Is there actually any tangible and concrete evidence that Rust, specially Unsafe Rust, improves productivity and safety? I'd love to read about it.

volta83 5y ago
> The whole point is that the same thing (creating safe abstractions over unsafe code) is what developers have been doing with C for close to half a century. They have been trying to do this, but it doesn't work because C's support for this is very poor. Not even C++ managed to do this. Rust makes it easy to do this in a reliable and efficient way that is 100% guaranteed to work. > I feel those baseless assertions require some supporting evidence. Is there actually any tangible and concrete evidence that Rust, specially Unsafe Rust, improves productivity and safety? Yes, see: https://prev.rust-lang.org/en-US/whitepapers.html https://prev.rust-lang.org/en-US/whitepapers.html and https://www.rust-lang.org/production https://www.rust-lang.org/production , and well https://dl.acm.org/action/doSearch?AllField=Rust https://dl.acm.org/action/doSearch?AllField=Rust (there are a bunch of peer-reviewed papers there that show this, serve yourself).