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They said some of the code can be rewritten in Rust but majority of the code cannot. Therefore they are stuck with C++ forever. Scary thing to think about.

happyweasel 2y ago
Also scary for Rust.
- mrkramer 2y ago
  But Rust has a lot of momentum and positive energy and C++ is becoming something like C, the language everybody is scared and depressed to use.
  - niutech 2y ago
    Tell it to GTK folks.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
mdaniel 2y ago
> but majority of the code cannot Do you have a citation for "cannot"? Maybe "prefer not because of non-functional requirements" but if it's a choice between a ~~webpage~~ ad vector loading 10 seconds slower versus the goddamn plague of RCEs coming out of Chrome, I know which one I'd take
- mrkramer 2y ago
  >Over the past decades, in addition to large Java and Go memory-safe codebases, Google has developed and accumulated hundreds of millions of lines of C++ code that is in active use and under active, ongoing development. This very large existing codebase results in significant challenges for a transition to memory safety: We see no realistic path for an evolution of C++ into a language with rigorous memory safety guarantees that include temporal safety. A large-scale rewrite of all existing C++ code into a different, memory-safe language appears very difficult and will likely remain impractical[0]. [0] https://security.googleblog.com/2024/03/secure-by-design-googles-perspective-on.html#:~:text=Over%20the%20past,likely%20remain%20impractical https://security.googleblog.com/2024/03/secure-by-design-goo.... Long story short; they are stuck with millions of C++ LOC and they can't transition to Rust completely because of the enormous complexity of various gigantic codebases e.g. Android, Chrome or whatever they want to move to memory-safe language/s. They said they will try to write as much new native code in Rust as they can plus they will interop from C++ to Rust in order to reduce memory-safety bugs.
  - niutech 2y ago
    Can't they use a transpiler from C++ to Rust? E.g. https://llvm.org/devmtg/2023-05/slides/Posters/02-Preto-AutomaticTranslationCPlusPlus-Rust.pdf https://llvm.org/devmtg/2023-05/slides/Posters/02-Preto-Auto...
    - swiftcoder 2y ago
      Eventually, maybe. In the short term, the transpilers mostly translate from other languages into unsafe Rust - which is a helpful tool during porting, but there is still a mountain of work to refactor unsafe idioms into safe before you really reap the benefits.
      - niutech 2y ago
        The presentation I linked talks about transpiling C++ to safe Rust.
        swiftcoder 2y ago
        Yes, there are a few such efforts ( such as https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.08264 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.08264 ). My understanding is that all are still somewhat experimental.

happyweasel 2y ago

Also scary for Rust.

mrkramer 2y ago
But Rust has a lot of momentum and positive energy and C++ is becoming something like C, the language everybody is scared and depressed to use.
- niutech 2y ago
  Tell it to GTK folks.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

mdaniel 2y ago

> but majority of the code cannot Do you have a citation for "cannot"? Maybe "prefer not because of non-functional requirements" but if it's a choice between a ~~webpage~~ ad vector loading 10 seconds slower versus the goddamn plague of RCEs coming out of Chrome, I know which one I'd take

mrkramer 2y ago
>Over the past decades, in addition to large Java and Go memory-safe codebases, Google has developed and accumulated hundreds of millions of lines of C++ code that is in active use and under active, ongoing development. This very large existing codebase results in significant challenges for a transition to memory safety: We see no realistic path for an evolution of C++ into a language with rigorous memory safety guarantees that include temporal safety. A large-scale rewrite of all existing C++ code into a different, memory-safe language appears very difficult and will likely remain impractical[0]. [0] https://security.googleblog.com/2024/03/secure-by-design-googles-perspective-on.html#:~:text=Over%20the%20past,likely%20remain%20impractical https://security.googleblog.com/2024/03/secure-by-design-goo.... Long story short; they are stuck with millions of C++ LOC and they can't transition to Rust completely because of the enormous complexity of various gigantic codebases e.g. Android, Chrome or whatever they want to move to memory-safe language/s. They said they will try to write as much new native code in Rust as they can plus they will interop from C++ to Rust in order to reduce memory-safety bugs.
- niutech 2y ago
  Can't they use a transpiler from C++ to Rust? E.g. https://llvm.org/devmtg/2023-05/slides/Posters/02-Preto-AutomaticTranslationCPlusPlus-Rust.pdf https://llvm.org/devmtg/2023-05/slides/Posters/02-Preto-Auto...
  - swiftcoder 2y ago
    Eventually, maybe. In the short term, the transpilers mostly translate from other languages into unsafe Rust - which is a helpful tool during porting, but there is still a mountain of work to refactor unsafe idioms into safe before you really reap the benefits.
    - niutech 2y ago
      The presentation I linked talks about transpiling C++ to safe Rust.
      - swiftcoder 2y ago
        Yes, there are a few such efforts ( such as https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.08264 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.08264 ). My understanding is that all are still somewhat experimental.