3 ms·

sure, rust is not the final answer to eliminating memory safety bugs from systems programming. but what are the alternatives, that aren't even more onerous and/

• mjburgess 1y ago
  My preference is to have better dynamic models of devices (eg., how many memory cells does ram have, how do these work dynamically, etc.) and line them up with well-defined input/output boundaries of programmes. Kinda "better fuzzing". I mean, can we run a program in a well-defined "debugging operating system" in a VM, with simulated "debugging devices" and so on? I dont know much about that idea, and the degree to which that vision is viable. However it's increasingly how the most robust software is tested -- by "massive-scale simulation". My guess is it isnt a major part of, say, academic study because its building tools over years rather than writing one-off papers over months. However, if we had this "debuggable device environment", i'd say it'd be vastly more powerful than Rust's static guarantees and allow for a kind of "fearless systems programming" without each loop becoming a sudoku puzzle.