3 ms·

Is there similar effort from Apple?

by frankjr 3y ago

monocasa 3y ago
I don't believe Apple has embraced Rust the same way Google has. Particularly their firmware is still very based on C.
- dagmx 3y ago
  Specifically a dialect called Firebloom (supposedly anyway) https://saaramar.github.io/iBoot_firebloom/ https://saaramar.github.io/iBoot_firebloom/
  - mrpippy 3y ago
    Possible related to the ‘-fbounds-safety’ feature they’ve proposed for Clang https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-enforcing-bounds-safety-in-c-fbounds-safety/70854 https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-enforcing-bounds-safety-in-...
    - jonpalmisc 3y ago
      Firebloom == `-fbounds-safety`
  - jonpalmisc 3y ago
    Firebloom is more of a custom compiler/toolchain than a dialect of C—apart from annotations to relate pointer+length parameters, etc., it is still just C.
    - jd3 3y ago
      Reminds me of this blurb from djb's qmail security guarantee [0]: > I've mostly given up on the standard C library. Many of its facilities, particularly stdio, seem designed to encourage bugs. A big chunk of qmail is stolen from a basic C library that I've been developing for several years for a variety of applications. The stralloc concept and getln() make it very easy to avoid buffer overruns, memory leaks, and artificial line length limits. [0]: http://cr.yp.to/qmail/guarantee.html http://cr.yp.to/qmail/guarantee.html
    - sigsev_251 3y ago
      I mean, the annotations are supposed to be simple C attributes wrapped in macros, so even them are just C
- jonpalmisc 3y ago
  The other commenter mentioning Firebloom is correct that some firmware (iBoot family) has been using C w/ Firebloom extensions for a while. Parts of SEPOS also use Swift, which would make more sense as a non-C language than Rust, from Apple's perspective at least.
candiddevmike 3y ago
What benefit would Apple get from this? They want you all in on an ecosystem they control. EDIT: Thought OP was talking about writing iOS apps using Rust.
- steveklabnik 3y ago
  Apple does use Rust, though from job postings, we can infer it's more like network services than firmware. Regardless though, I don't see how the implementation language of your firmware is locking you into a specific ecosystem, so this criticism seems misguided to me.
pjmlp 3y ago
Apparently people keep forgetting Swift exists. "CppNow 2023:Introducing a Memory-Safe Successor Language in Large C++ Code Bases" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgivCGdmFrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgivCGdmFrw
- adastra22 3y ago
  Swift is a different class than rust though.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Not for Apple, > Swift was designed from the outset to be safer than C-based languages, and eliminates entire classes of unsafe code. -- https://www.swift.org/about/ https://www.swift.org/about/ > Swift is a successor to the C, C++, and Objective-C languages -- https://developer.apple.com/swift/ https://developer.apple.com/swift/
- diogenes4 3y ago
  Sorry, what does swift have to do with this?
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Swift is Apple's answer to replacing C derived languages, they don't need Rust. > Swift is a successor to the C, C++, and Objective-C languages -- https://developer.apple.com/swift/ https://developer.apple.com/swift/ They also mention plans for kernel and firmware targets on that talk.

Is there similar effort from Apple?

monocasa 3y ago

I don't believe Apple has embraced Rust the same way Google has. Particularly their firmware is still very based on C.

dagmx 3y ago
Specifically a dialect called Firebloom (supposedly anyway) https://saaramar.github.io/iBoot_firebloom/ https://saaramar.github.io/iBoot_firebloom/
- mrpippy 3y ago
  Possible related to the ‘-fbounds-safety’ feature they’ve proposed for Clang https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-enforcing-bounds-safety-in-c-fbounds-safety/70854 https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-enforcing-bounds-safety-in-...
  - jonpalmisc 3y ago
    Firebloom == `-fbounds-safety`
- jonpalmisc 3y ago
  Firebloom is more of a custom compiler/toolchain than a dialect of C—apart from annotations to relate pointer+length parameters, etc., it is still just C.
  - jd3 3y ago
    Reminds me of this blurb from djb's qmail security guarantee [0]: > I've mostly given up on the standard C library. Many of its facilities, particularly stdio, seem designed to encourage bugs. A big chunk of qmail is stolen from a basic C library that I've been developing for several years for a variety of applications. The stralloc concept and getln() make it very easy to avoid buffer overruns, memory leaks, and artificial line length limits. [0]: http://cr.yp.to/qmail/guarantee.html http://cr.yp.to/qmail/guarantee.html
  - sigsev_251 3y ago
    I mean, the annotations are supposed to be simple C attributes wrapped in macros, so even them are just C
jonpalmisc 3y ago
The other commenter mentioning Firebloom is correct that some firmware (iBoot family) has been using C w/ Firebloom extensions for a while. Parts of SEPOS also use Swift, which would make more sense as a non-C language than Rust, from Apple's perspective at least.

candiddevmike 3y ago

What benefit would Apple get from this? They want you all in on an ecosystem they control. EDIT: Thought OP was talking about writing iOS apps using Rust.

steveklabnik 3y ago
Apple does use Rust, though from job postings, we can infer it's more like network services than firmware. Regardless though, I don't see how the implementation language of your firmware is locking you into a specific ecosystem, so this criticism seems misguided to me.

pjmlp 3y ago

Apparently people keep forgetting Swift exists. "CppNow 2023:Introducing a Memory-Safe Successor Language in Large C++ Code Bases" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgivCGdmFrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgivCGdmFrw

adastra22 3y ago
Swift is a different class than rust though.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Not for Apple, > Swift was designed from the outset to be safer than C-based languages, and eliminates entire classes of unsafe code. -- https://www.swift.org/about/ https://www.swift.org/about/ > Swift is a successor to the C, C++, and Objective-C languages -- https://developer.apple.com/swift/ https://developer.apple.com/swift/
diogenes4 3y ago
Sorry, what does swift have to do with this?
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Swift is Apple's answer to replacing C derived languages, they don't need Rust. > Swift is a successor to the C, C++, and Objective-C languages -- https://developer.apple.com/swift/ https://developer.apple.com/swift/ They also mention plans for kernel and firmware targets on that talk.