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Seven years ago someone at Google estimated that there was 2 Billion lines of code in production to support Google Services [1]. Given this was seven years ago
by npalli 4y ago
Seven years ago someone at Google estimated that there was 2 Billion lines of code in production to support Google Services [1]. Given this was seven years ago the number is probably much higher now and a large chunk of it is C++. Clearly any replacement language for C++ has to seamlessly (as primary design goal at least) consume and update this gigantic C++ code base. Nobody is rewriting all of that from scratch. That pretty much rules out Rust, Golang and various other languages which provide a thin "extern C function" level compatibility at best. Would be interesting to see how the language progresses.
[1]. https://www.wired.com/2015/09/google-2-billion-lines-codeand-one-place/ https://www.wired.com/2015/09/google-2-billion-lines-codeand...
- hnov 4y agoExactly, Rust has been around for a while and it hasn't reached parity in terms of LoC with C and C++ in Gecko's codebase, presumably because it's impossible to rewrite individual units unless the API is impossibly narrow. This new language will be more like different JVM langs in terms of interop.
- jsharf 4y agoYou don't need to rewrite existing code. Just develop new code in it.