←back to thread

Matt Godbolt sold me on Rust by showing me C++

(www.collabora.com)
611 points LorenDB | 3 comments | 06 May 25 17:51 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
markus_zhang ◴[06 May 25 18:09 UTC] No.43908006[source]▶
What if we have a C that removes the quirks without adding too much brain drain?

So no implicit type conversions, safer strings, etc.

replies(10): >>43908024 #>>43908037 #>>43908071 #>>43908130 #>>43908141 #>>43908193 #>>43908341 #>>43908840 #>>43909556 #>>43913099 #
alexchamberlain ◴[06 May 25 18:12 UTC] No.43908037[source]▶
I'm inferring that you think Rust adds too much brain drain? If so, what?
replies(2): >>43908171 #>>43908498 #
1. GardenLetter27 ◴[06 May 25 18:28 UTC] No.43908171[source]▶
The borrow checker rejects loads of sound programs - just read https://rust-unofficial.github.io/too-many-lists/

Aliasing rules can also be problematic in some circumstances (but also beneficial for compiler optimisations).

And the orphan rule is also quite restrictive for adapting imported types, if you're coming from an interpreted language.

https://loglog.games/blog/leaving-rust-gamedev/ sums up the main issues nicely tbh.

replies(2): >>43908370 #>>43913157 #
2. IshKebab ◴[06 May 25 18:48 UTC] No.43908370[source]▶
> The borrow checker rejects loads of sound programs

I bet assembly programmers said the same about C!

Every language has relatively minor issues like these. Seriously pick a language and I can make a similar list. For C it will be a very long list!

3. oconnor663 ◴[07 May 25 07:46 UTC] No.43913157[source]▶
> The borrow checker rejects loads of sound programs - just read https://rust-unofficial.github.io/too-many-lists/

It's important to be careful here: a lot (most? all?) of these rejections are programs that could be sound in a hypothetical Rust variant that didn't assert the unique/"noalias" nature of &mut reference, but are in fact unsound in actual Rust.