4 ms·

Its singular goal is to be an awesome language for writing next-generation browser engines. Well, per the FAQ: (https://github.com/mozilla/rust/wiki/Doc-projec

by neilc 15y ago

Its singular goal is to be an awesome language for writing next-generation browser engines. Well, per the FAQ: (https://github.com/mozilla/rust/wiki/Doc-project-FAQ https://github.com/mozilla/rust/wiki/Doc-project-FAQ) What is this project's goal, in one sentence? To design and implement a safe, concurrent, practical, static systems language.

jk4930 15y ago
Then they should use Ada. If it's good enough for high integrity applications in space, transportation, or banking, then it's certainly good enough for browsers. ;)
- heretohelp 15y ago
  Wasn't good enough for the Ariane V launch.
  - jk4930 15y ago
    Nice trolling. Ada wasn't the problem, a decision to disable a warning for efficiency reasons was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501
- batista 15y ago
  You know, there are some things that --to me-- absolutely identify a newcomer to this programming/computer thing. One is the belief that it would be to good to write everything in assembly (from OSs to browsers to games) so that it would be faster. See they heard that assembly is faster and lower-level, so "the more the merrier, right"? Another (that you don't get much nowadays, but there was a time in the early 90's that was very common) was this fascination with Ada. Mostly because of all the marketing and BS articles at the time. The reasoning here was "well, if they use that for missiles and F16s, it must be the best, right?"
  - jk4930 15y ago
    They want a language that's safe, concurrent, blabla, and good for system programming? Then they should take a look at Ada 2012. But I guess they just want to build something themselves. They could even make use of Ada's real time capabilities. It was a pleasure when I ran QNX (2005) and everything responded to my actions on spot, even their browser (Voyager). Today I run FF and after a while and with several tabs open it takes (many) seconds until this beast shows some reaction. BTW I don't use Ada but mostly Haskell since 2001.
    - obtu 15y ago
      Today's web isn't the 2005 web. Go to a geocities archive with both browsers and the results will be much closer. Faculty pages also work, they're almost always free of dynamic bloat.
  - JulianMorrison 15y ago
    Ada is good because of useful typing (such as the ability to say "apples and oranges are both represented as signed 32 bit integers, the allowable range for apples is 0..5, and you can't mix them"), strong control over data representation, standardized extensions for on-the-metal programming and hard real time, built in synchronous message passing concurrency, and just generally being an awesome language. It's also good because of SPARK Ada, which is an ultra-safe Ada subset plus annotations and supports extensive static checking. None of this require buying into marketing hype. It's bad because the language is large and some parts feel out of date, the memory management is more complicated than it ought to be, and compilers are thin on the ground and often expensive. Targeting C at a new machine is much easier than Ada, and this is probably the main reason why it lost.
    - jk4930 15y ago
      My personal guesses why Ada lost: In (Western) academia was a massive dislike of Ada because of its DoD roots and NATO applications, so they didn't use it for teaching. And hackers disliked it because it was a committee-designed language and it's pretty restrictive (even paternalistic) and directed toward mediocre programmers (a good decision for systems that run over decades and have big, changing teams assigned to it). What was meant half-joking (that they should use Ada for the browser) becomes better the more I think about it. When I look at Rust's design goals, I find that Ada 2012 fulfills them (at least superficially). Additionally: if users have to learn Rust as a new language, then they can use Ada anyway (which has a good track record, while there's no experience with Rust's possible quirks). And I guess if they ask AdaCore to include certain features as add-ons to their GNAT compiler, they'd do it or assist (because for fun and for the publicity that Firefox uses Ada).
Arelius 15y ago
As it turns out, Web Browsers and AAA video games in addition to Kernels are things which generally require a "systems language"

by neilc 15y ago

jk4930 15y ago

Then they should use Ada. If it's good enough for high integrity applications in space, transportation, or banking, then it's certainly good enough for browsers. ;)

heretohelp 15y ago
Wasn't good enough for the Ariane V launch.
- jk4930 15y ago
  Nice trolling. Ada wasn't the problem, a decision to disable a warning for efficiency reasons was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501
batista 15y ago
You know, there are some things that --to me-- absolutely identify a newcomer to this programming/computer thing. One is the belief that it would be to good to write everything in assembly (from OSs to browsers to games) so that it would be faster. See they heard that assembly is faster and lower-level, so "the more the merrier, right"? Another (that you don't get much nowadays, but there was a time in the early 90's that was very common) was this fascination with Ada. Mostly because of all the marketing and BS articles at the time. The reasoning here was "well, if they use that for missiles and F16s, it must be the best, right?"
- jk4930 15y ago
  They want a language that's safe, concurrent, blabla, and good for system programming? Then they should take a look at Ada 2012. But I guess they just want to build something themselves. They could even make use of Ada's real time capabilities. It was a pleasure when I ran QNX (2005) and everything responded to my actions on spot, even their browser (Voyager). Today I run FF and after a while and with several tabs open it takes (many) seconds until this beast shows some reaction. BTW I don't use Ada but mostly Haskell since 2001.
  - obtu 15y ago
    Today's web isn't the 2005 web. Go to a geocities archive with both browsers and the results will be much closer. Faculty pages also work, they're almost always free of dynamic bloat.
- JulianMorrison 15y ago
  Ada is good because of useful typing (such as the ability to say "apples and oranges are both represented as signed 32 bit integers, the allowable range for apples is 0..5, and you can't mix them"), strong control over data representation, standardized extensions for on-the-metal programming and hard real time, built in synchronous message passing concurrency, and just generally being an awesome language. It's also good because of SPARK Ada, which is an ultra-safe Ada subset plus annotations and supports extensive static checking. None of this require buying into marketing hype. It's bad because the language is large and some parts feel out of date, the memory management is more complicated than it ought to be, and compilers are thin on the ground and often expensive. Targeting C at a new machine is much easier than Ada, and this is probably the main reason why it lost.
  - jk4930 15y ago
    My personal guesses why Ada lost: In (Western) academia was a massive dislike of Ada because of its DoD roots and NATO applications, so they didn't use it for teaching. And hackers disliked it because it was a committee-designed language and it's pretty restrictive (even paternalistic) and directed toward mediocre programmers (a good decision for systems that run over decades and have big, changing teams assigned to it). What was meant half-joking (that they should use Ada for the browser) becomes better the more I think about it. When I look at Rust's design goals, I find that Ada 2012 fulfills them (at least superficially). Additionally: if users have to learn Rust as a new language, then they can use Ada anyway (which has a good track record, while there's no experience with Rust's possible quirks). And I guess if they ask AdaCore to include certain features as add-ons to their GNAT compiler, they'd do it or assist (because for fun and for the publicity that Firefox uses Ada).

Arelius 15y ago

As it turns out, Web Browsers and AAA video games in addition to Kernels are things which generally require a "systems language"