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Damn this person's obviously is so bitter towards Rust... I wonder why he's so obsessed with it? I mean, if they really care about software correctness, I wond

Damn this person's obviously is so bitter towards Rust... I wonder why he's so obsessed with it? I mean, if they really care about software correctness, I wonder why take a very discutibile position and say that "safety doesn't matter if you don't use the correct process". Yeah, I mean, having some guardrails is better than none, right? If they really cared about correctness, they would really strive to put all the possible guardrails in place, wouldn't they? Maybe they are bitter because their fav language is not as popular as the other? But there are so many languages, I wonder why picking on Rust specifically.

mobelkh 3mo ago
the piece didn't really seem very targeted at Rust as much as it's targeted at projects claiming to be secure just because they're written in Rust
- Zakis1 3mo ago
  Agree, the claim "secure because Rust" is wrong. But "more secure than if it were written in an unsafe language" is probably going to be true most of the time.
  - BirAdam 3mo ago
    Nah. You’re assuming that the developer has some experience. The false assurance that the magic of Rust will protect the developer from himself/herself will lead that young developer to make worse decisions. An experienced developer typically has discernment, and has learned, rather painfully, that he/she can make serious errors in any language.
    - kibwen 3mo ago
      No. Rust is excellent for beginner programmers dipping their toes into systems programming for the first time. Imagine you have a million-line C codebase, and a brand-new junior hire. Are you going to unleash them on the codebase unsupervised? Hell no, you're going to need to watch them like a hawk and regularly slap their fingers in order to teach them what not to do. But I would gladly unleash a junior on a million-line Rust codebase, as long as I have a CI rule that flags any PRs that touches files containing the `unsafe` keyword. This frees up the junior to spend more time learning the business domain and less time worrying about bizarre memory errors.
ares623 3mo ago
from his about page: "I'm VP of Community at the Zig Software Foundation" EDIT: doesn't really answer your question. Just reminds me of a good ol' flamewar.
- randypewick 3mo ago
  Thank you for this info! So they are on the payroll of the ZSF. It's likely just a marketing job then, and not a flame war, or maybe an opportunistic flame war.
worik 3mo ago
> Damn this person's obviously is so bitter towards Rust What makes you think that? > I wonder why picking on Rust specifically. I did not see that. What did I miss?
- randypewick 3mo ago
  Well, maybe I'm biased! It just stood out, so I felt it was picking.
raincole 3mo ago
I don't get it. Are we reading the same article? This article is so generic that it reads like vacuous truth to me. But I don't see their bitterness towards Rust (or anything, really. It's just vacuous.) from it. Is this person a famous anti-rust'er or something?
- bigyabai 3mo ago
  > It doesn’t matter that the language you use is memory-safe > nobody can trick me into mistaking lesser stars for my true destination The author seems to be in some level of denial around compile-time safety checks. They're right that runtime safety errors are an issue, but it feels wrong to discount compile time checkers when it can save a lot of yak shaving.
  - mcdonje 3mo ago
    Quote the entire sentence. >It doesn’t matter that the language you use is memory-safe, if you didn’t design for correctness or have no process that will eventually lead you to fixing all bugs. It's also worth noting that they linked a post about how memory safety is literally a matter of life and death, so it seems like their point is that memory safety is one class of bug, and a compiler guarantee about it doesn't equate to a guarantee of correct, bugless, unexploitable code. Like, the linked author brought up that Khashoggi's wife's phone was hacked. Maybe that was due to a memory bug or some other kind of bug. Maybe the next journalist who gets hacked is a victim of a memory bug or some other kind of bug. But that linked post didn't take a holistic view of correctness, but went straight to, "Rust is safe. Rust saves lives." There's a logical error there that's being pointed out. If you really want to save lives, you need to eliminate exploits. Not just do a victory lap because your compiler ostensibly eliminates one class of them. The compiler doesn't catch all bugs. The compiler isn't the only tool for catching bugs. That's my reading of it, anyway. I think he has a point, and the Rust people do as well. I think it's wrong to portray him as bitter.
    - kristoff_it 3mo ago
      That is correct, this blog post is about understanding the priority of various subgoals and the ultimate goal (creating useful software). Memory-safety is important but overfitting on that subgoal, as I believe the memory-safety blog post is doing, won't make you create better software. If Rust helps you get all the way to correctness, then great, but that blog post was insane.

mobelkh 3mo ago

the piece didn't really seem very targeted at Rust as much as it's targeted at projects claiming to be secure just because they're written in Rust

Zakis1 3mo ago
Agree, the claim "secure because Rust" is wrong. But "more secure than if it were written in an unsafe language" is probably going to be true most of the time.
- BirAdam 3mo ago
  Nah. You’re assuming that the developer has some experience. The false assurance that the magic of Rust will protect the developer from himself/herself will lead that young developer to make worse decisions. An experienced developer typically has discernment, and has learned, rather painfully, that he/she can make serious errors in any language.
  - kibwen 3mo ago
    No. Rust is excellent for beginner programmers dipping their toes into systems programming for the first time. Imagine you have a million-line C codebase, and a brand-new junior hire. Are you going to unleash them on the codebase unsupervised? Hell no, you're going to need to watch them like a hawk and regularly slap their fingers in order to teach them what not to do. But I would gladly unleash a junior on a million-line Rust codebase, as long as I have a CI rule that flags any PRs that touches files containing the `unsafe` keyword. This frees up the junior to spend more time learning the business domain and less time worrying about bizarre memory errors.

ares623 3mo ago

from his about page: "I'm VP of Community at the Zig Software Foundation" EDIT: doesn't really answer your question. Just reminds me of a good ol' flamewar.

randypewick 3mo ago
Thank you for this info! So they are on the payroll of the ZSF. It's likely just a marketing job then, and not a flame war, or maybe an opportunistic flame war.

worik 3mo ago

> Damn this person's obviously is so bitter towards Rust What makes you think that? > I wonder why picking on Rust specifically. I did not see that. What did I miss?

randypewick 3mo ago
Well, maybe I'm biased! It just stood out, so I felt it was picking.

raincole 3mo ago

I don't get it. Are we reading the same article? This article is so generic that it reads like vacuous truth to me. But I don't see their bitterness towards Rust (or anything, really. It's just vacuous.) from it. Is this person a famous anti-rust'er or something?

bigyabai 3mo ago
> It doesn’t matter that the language you use is memory-safe > nobody can trick me into mistaking lesser stars for my true destination The author seems to be in some level of denial around compile-time safety checks. They're right that runtime safety errors are an issue, but it feels wrong to discount compile time checkers when it can save a lot of yak shaving.
- mcdonje 3mo ago
  Quote the entire sentence. >It doesn’t matter that the language you use is memory-safe, if you didn’t design for correctness or have no process that will eventually lead you to fixing all bugs. It's also worth noting that they linked a post about how memory safety is literally a matter of life and death, so it seems like their point is that memory safety is one class of bug, and a compiler guarantee about it doesn't equate to a guarantee of correct, bugless, unexploitable code. Like, the linked author brought up that Khashoggi's wife's phone was hacked. Maybe that was due to a memory bug or some other kind of bug. Maybe the next journalist who gets hacked is a victim of a memory bug or some other kind of bug. But that linked post didn't take a holistic view of correctness, but went straight to, "Rust is safe. Rust saves lives." There's a logical error there that's being pointed out. If you really want to save lives, you need to eliminate exploits. Not just do a victory lap because your compiler ostensibly eliminates one class of them. The compiler doesn't catch all bugs. The compiler isn't the only tool for catching bugs. That's my reading of it, anyway. I think he has a point, and the Rust people do as well. I think it's wrong to portray him as bitter.
  - kristoff_it 3mo ago
    That is correct, this blog post is about understanding the priority of various subgoals and the ultimate goal (creating useful software). Memory-safety is important but overfitting on that subgoal, as I believe the memory-safety blog post is doing, won't make you create better software. If Rust helps you get all the way to correctness, then great, but that blog post was insane.