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What is the proposed replacement for ASM (in particular) and C in the context of the bootstrapping process? Then why lump ELF (unless you don’t mean the executa

What is the proposed replacement for ASM (in particular) and C in the context of the bootstrapping process? Then why lump ELF (unless you don’t mean the executable format) in with the low level language? Historically, pjmlp has pushed very strongly for languages attempting to take the place of C and C++ at the infrastructure layer can not claim to have supplanted those two until their own compiler and related infrastructure is not dependent on C++ (LLVM in particular). I tend to sympathize with this view, it is really hard to take a language’s claim to have supplanted C++ and be the only fit for use language going forward, but then is dependent on millions of lines of the languages they disparage. As a counter however, it’s rather difficult to expect a language to overcome thousands of person-years of work on a compiler like LLVM and tens of thousands of person-years on Linux. The newer languages should be able to make an articulate case that throwing away so much work is not a viable approach and just use what exists now but keep the new languages on all greenfield projects.

steveklabnik 10mo ago
As another counter, Rust has never claimed to have "supplanted" C++. So holding it to that standard is holding it to a non-goal for itself in the first place.
- throwaway17_17 10mo ago
  tl;dr - Rust wants to be a foundational language of the computing stack and holding it to the standard of being bootstrapped, instead of relying on another language, is a reasonable critique. Clearly Rust the language and the associated organization would not make that claim. Particularly where supplanted is a past tense verb and indicates that it is a completed project. However, despite overblown complaints about the RESF, the community both in commentary and in practice has been extremely vocal that any language that does not have Rust’s memory safety model is not suitable for any new project or further use in existing projects. And while the RIIR meme is for the most part a message board strawman, again, the community surrounding Rust is busy reimplementing coreutils in Linux, putting Rust in the kernel, and rewriting the userland executables that most Linux workflows are based around (ripgrep being the most successful in this group). It is clear that Rust, the community of users (if not the language as an independent entity) clearly wants to supplant both C and C++ at all levels of the computing stack. The push for Rust in the Linux kernel is enough evidence to support the concept at the most pervasive level. Continuous references to wide spread adoption and endorsements by ‘big tech’ is used to frame Rust as the only viable option going forward. Blog posts, Reddit threads, and board comments all routinely take the stance that memory-safety (as defined by Rust) is ‘table stakes’ for any development occuring in current year. It feels disingenuous to pretend that Rust is not trying to become the industry standard language in the way C and C++ is today and has been for multiple decades. And given that aim, I think talking about Rust, as the name for both the language and its community of users and supporters, is working to supplant C and C++. Given all that, I find it fair to discuss the fact that while busy trying to maneuver itself into every space in the tech industry (from embedded all the way up to the front end for web web apps) and find some success in doing so Rust is still reliant on C++ infrastructure particularly for compilation. I was responding to a pair of comments about the desire to see languages that want to be the bedrock of the computing stack bootstrapped. I think Rust absolutely wants to be such a bedrock language and as such, I don’t think wanting it to be bootstrapped and not reliant on the C++ it want to replace is an unreasonable standard to hold the language to.
  - LegionMammal978 10mo ago
    Is offering an alternative to LLVM not precisely one of the purposes of the rustc_codegen_cranelift backend [0]? It still doesn't have 100% feature parity, but I believe it's able to fully bootstrap the compiler at this point. Writing a rustc backend isn't trivial, but it isn't as impossible as you make it out to be. [0] https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_cranelift https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_cranelift
    - throwaway17_17 10mo ago
      I’m not sure what I wrote to give the impression that Rust was unable to write a compiler, let alone implied it was impossible. Rust is certainly full featured enough to write a very well performing compiler. I find my comment more an indictment, and viewed uncharitably an accusation of hypocrisy, of the language org’s oversight that they are so heavily invested in LLVM (but if I was leveling such an accusation it would not be just because it’s a C++ project) My comment was focused on the fact that Rust is not using a Rust compiler and therefore is relying on deep and complex C++ infrastructure while working to supplant the same at the lowest levels of the computing stack. I was also commenting, up the thread, in a chain of comments about a perceived shortcoming of Rust’s implementation (i.e. it’s not being bootstrapped) and why some people view that as a negative.
      - tialaramex 10mo ago
        All of the front-end is in fact pure Rust, I know that because I am one of the huge number of authors. The backend, thus the code generation and many optimisations of the sort AoCO is about is LLVM. We absolutely know that if Rust didn't offer LLVM you'd see C++ people saying "Rust doesn't even have a proper optimiser". So now what you're asking for isn't just "a Rust backend" which exists as others have discussed, but a Rust alternative to LLVM, multiple targets, lots of high quality optimisations, etc. presumably as a drop-in or close approximation since today people have LLVM and are in production with the resulting code.
        10mo ago
- pjmlp 10mo ago
  You see it all over the place, not the point of Rust core team, but certainly from the kind of posts that gave origin to Rust Freedom Force memes.

steveklabnik 10mo ago

As another counter, Rust has never claimed to have "supplanted" C++. So holding it to that standard is holding it to a non-goal for itself in the first place.

throwaway17_17 10mo ago
tl;dr - Rust wants to be a foundational language of the computing stack and holding it to the standard of being bootstrapped, instead of relying on another language, is a reasonable critique. Clearly Rust the language and the associated organization would not make that claim. Particularly where supplanted is a past tense verb and indicates that it is a completed project. However, despite overblown complaints about the RESF, the community both in commentary and in practice has been extremely vocal that any language that does not have Rust’s memory safety model is not suitable for any new project or further use in existing projects. And while the RIIR meme is for the most part a message board strawman, again, the community surrounding Rust is busy reimplementing coreutils in Linux, putting Rust in the kernel, and rewriting the userland executables that most Linux workflows are based around (ripgrep being the most successful in this group). It is clear that Rust, the community of users (if not the language as an independent entity) clearly wants to supplant both C and C++ at all levels of the computing stack. The push for Rust in the Linux kernel is enough evidence to support the concept at the most pervasive level. Continuous references to wide spread adoption and endorsements by ‘big tech’ is used to frame Rust as the only viable option going forward. Blog posts, Reddit threads, and board comments all routinely take the stance that memory-safety (as defined by Rust) is ‘table stakes’ for any development occuring in current year. It feels disingenuous to pretend that Rust is not trying to become the industry standard language in the way C and C++ is today and has been for multiple decades. And given that aim, I think talking about Rust, as the name for both the language and its community of users and supporters, is working to supplant C and C++. Given all that, I find it fair to discuss the fact that while busy trying to maneuver itself into every space in the tech industry (from embedded all the way up to the front end for web web apps) and find some success in doing so Rust is still reliant on C++ infrastructure particularly for compilation. I was responding to a pair of comments about the desire to see languages that want to be the bedrock of the computing stack bootstrapped. I think Rust absolutely wants to be such a bedrock language and as such, I don’t think wanting it to be bootstrapped and not reliant on the C++ it want to replace is an unreasonable standard to hold the language to.
- LegionMammal978 10mo ago
  Is offering an alternative to LLVM not precisely one of the purposes of the rustc_codegen_cranelift backend [0]? It still doesn't have 100% feature parity, but I believe it's able to fully bootstrap the compiler at this point. Writing a rustc backend isn't trivial, but it isn't as impossible as you make it out to be. [0] https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_cranelift https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_cranelift
  - throwaway17_17 10mo ago
    I’m not sure what I wrote to give the impression that Rust was unable to write a compiler, let alone implied it was impossible. Rust is certainly full featured enough to write a very well performing compiler. I find my comment more an indictment, and viewed uncharitably an accusation of hypocrisy, of the language org’s oversight that they are so heavily invested in LLVM (but if I was leveling such an accusation it would not be just because it’s a C++ project) My comment was focused on the fact that Rust is not using a Rust compiler and therefore is relying on deep and complex C++ infrastructure while working to supplant the same at the lowest levels of the computing stack. I was also commenting, up the thread, in a chain of comments about a perceived shortcoming of Rust’s implementation (i.e. it’s not being bootstrapped) and why some people view that as a negative.
    - tialaramex 10mo ago
      All of the front-end is in fact pure Rust, I know that because I am one of the huge number of authors. The backend, thus the code generation and many optimisations of the sort AoCO is about is LLVM. We absolutely know that if Rust didn't offer LLVM you'd see C++ people saying "Rust doesn't even have a proper optimiser". So now what you're asking for isn't just "a Rust backend" which exists as others have discussed, but a Rust alternative to LLVM, multiple targets, lots of high quality optimisations, etc. presumably as a drop-in or close approximation since today people have LLVM and are in production with the resulting code.
      - 10mo ago
pjmlp 10mo ago
You see it all over the place, not the point of Rust core team, but certainly from the kind of posts that gave origin to Rust Freedom Force memes.