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Eurydice: a Rust to C compiler

(jonathan.protzenko.fr)
185 points todsacerdoti | 2 comments | 07 Dec 25 01:41 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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apitman ◴[07 Dec 25 05:40 UTC] No.46179418[source]▶
I use Rust and C at work. I quite enjoy Rust, but I currently have no reason to believe C won't outlive it, by a lot.
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mustache_kimono ◴[07 Dec 25 07:00 UTC] No.46179780[source]▶
> I currently have no reason to believe C won't outlive it, by a lot.

My reaction is kind of: "So what?" I really don't care about the relative lives of languages and don't really understand why anyone would. Unless I am wrong, there is still lots of COBOL we wish wasn't COBOL? And that reality doesn't sound like a celebration of COBOL?

IMHO it would be completely amazing if magically something 10x better than Rust came along tomorrow, and I'd bet most Rust people would agree. Death should be welcomed after a well lived life.

To me, the more interesting question is -- what if efforts like c2rust, Eurydice, TRACTOR and/or LLMs make translations more automatic and idiomatic? Maybe C will exist, but no one will be "writing" C in 20 years? Perhaps C persists like the COBOL zombie? Perhaps this zombification is a fate worse than death? Perhaps C becomes like Latin. Something students loath and are completely bored with, but are forced to learn simply as the ancient interface language for the next millennia.

Is that winning? I'd much rather people were excited about tech/a language/a business/vibrant community, than, whatever it is, simply persisted, and sometimes I wish certain C people could see that.

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pjmlp ◴[07 Dec 25 07:55 UTC] No.46180024[source]▶
COBOL has enough business money around to get new tools and ISO standards[0], so it is unlikley to think otherwise regarding C.

https://www.rocketsoftware.com/en-us/products/cobol/visual-c...

[0] ISO COBOL 2023 - https://www.iso.org/standard/74527.html

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1. mustache_kimono ◴[07 Dec 25 08:28 UTC] No.46180128{3}[source]▶
> COBOL has enough business money around to get new tools and ISO standards[0], so it is unlikley to think otherwise regarding C.

I don't think you understand my point. I am explicitly saying "C will definitely survive (like COBOL)". I am asking is that the kind of life people want for C?

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2. pjmlp ◴[07 Dec 25 09:05 UTC] No.46180288[source]▶
Ideally we would have moved on into some Assembly glue + compiled managed high level languages by now, like Xerox PARC when then moved away from BCPL into Smalltalk, Interlisp-D, Mesa and Mesa/Cedar, but some folks and industry standards cannot let go of C, and those have to contend with that kind of life for C, exactly.