3 ms·
The crux of the problem is not that memory management is difficult, it’s that with unsafe languages it is dangerously error prone. In the 70s and 80s most mach
by _mlbt 3y ago
The crux of the problem is not that memory management is difficult, it’s that with unsafe languages it is dangerously error prone. In the 70s and 80s most machines were considerably more resource constrained and either on closed networks or not networked at all. In today’s world where everything is connected to 24/7 high speed internet these are risks that just aren’t worth taking for most new software projects.
- wakawaka28 3y agoYou say it isn't difficult but it is "error-prone", which is a contradiction. Either it is hard to get right or it isn't. I think it might be but not to the extent you do. Whatever issues we have with memory management, solutions exist and have existed for decades. People who continue to use so-called "unsafe" languages tend to know what they're doing. There are lots of solutions out there besides rewriting in another language that isn't that much less error-prone, such as Rust.
- ModernMech 3y agoI think what the parent means to say is that memory management is simple to understand, but it’s hard to get right. Put differently, a developer can grok how to properly manage memory, but we’ve found that trying really hard to get it right does not scale. Even if you’re an expert. We need tools to check our work.