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> If it is acceptable to structure the code in specific ways to make the Rust compiler happy I think this is a misleading way of presenting the issue. In Rust,

by GTP 2y ago

> If it is acceptable to structure the code in specific ways to make the Rust compiler happy I think this is a misleading way of presenting the issue. In Rust, there are class of bugs that no valid Rust code can have (unless maybe when using the "unsafe" keyword), while there is valid C code that has said bugs. And here's the difference: in Rust the compiler prevents some mistakes for you, while in C it is you that have to exercise discipline to make sure every single time you structure the code in such a way to make said bugs unlikely. From this, it follows that Rust code will have less (memory-related) bugs. It is not an apples to apples comparison because Rust is designed to be a memory safe fruit, while C isn't.

uecker 2y ago
The point was that you can not reject warnings as part of a solution for C because "it annoys programmers because it has false positives" while accepting Rust's borrow checker as a solution.
- GTP 2y ago
  I think the general point of my comment still stands, as you and everyone else working on the project would need to be disciplined and only release binaries that were compiled with no warnings. And even using -Werror doesn't fully solve the problem in C, as not having warnings/errors is still not enough to get memory safety.
  - uecker 2y ago
    I don't really disagree with you, but I was also making a slightly different point. If you need absolute memory safety, you can use Rust (without ever using unsafe) But you get 99% this way with C, a bit of discipline, and tooling and this also means maintaining a super clean code base with many warnings activated even though they cause false positives. My point is that these false positives are not a valid argument why this strategy does not work or is inferior. Your claim is that it is inferior because you only get 99% of safety and not 100%. But one can question whether you actually get 100% in Rust in practice in a project of relevant size and complexity, due to FFI and unsafe. One can also question whether 100% memory safety is all that important when there also many other issues to look out for, but this is a different argument.

by GTP 2y ago

uecker 2y ago

The point was that you can not reject warnings as part of a solution for C because "it annoys programmers because it has false positives" while accepting Rust's borrow checker as a solution.

GTP 2y ago
I think the general point of my comment still stands, as you and everyone else working on the project would need to be disciplined and only release binaries that were compiled with no warnings. And even using -Werror doesn't fully solve the problem in C, as not having warnings/errors is still not enough to get memory safety.
- uecker 2y ago
  I don't really disagree with you, but I was also making a slightly different point. If you need absolute memory safety, you can use Rust (without ever using unsafe) But you get 99% this way with C, a bit of discipline, and tooling and this also means maintaining a super clean code base with many warnings activated even though they cause false positives. My point is that these false positives are not a valid argument why this strategy does not work or is inferior. Your claim is that it is inferior because you only get 99% of safety and not 100%. But one can question whether you actually get 100% in Rust in practice in a project of relevant size and complexity, due to FFI and unsafe. One can also question whether 100% memory safety is all that important when there also many other issues to look out for, but this is a different argument.