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One Of The Rust Linux Kernel Maintainers Steps Down - Cites "Nontechnical Nonsense" (www.phoronix.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Wedson Almeida Filho is a Microsoft engineer who has been prolific in his contributions to the Rust for the Linux kernel code over the past several years. Wedson has worked on many Rust Linux kernel features and even did a experimental EXT2 file-system driver port to Rust. But he's had enough and is now stepping away from the Rust for Linux efforts.

From Wedon's post on the kernel mailing list:

I am retiring from the project. After almost 4 years, I find myself lacking the energy and enthusiasm I once had to respond to some of the nontechnical nonsense, so it's best to leave it up to those who still have it in them.

...

I truly believe the future of kernels is with memory-safe languages. I am no visionary but if Linux doesn't internalize this, I'm afraid some other kernel will do to it what it did to Unix.

Lastly, I'll leave a small, 3min 30s, sample for context here: https://youtu.be/WiPp9YEBV0Q?t=1529 -- and to reiterate, no one is trying force anyone else to learn Rust nor prevent refactorings of C code."

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[+] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well, I've been a C/C++ dev for half of my career, I didn't find Rust syntax ugly. Some things are better than others, but not a major departure from C/C++. ObjC is where ugly is at. And I even think swift is more ugly. In fact, I can't find too many that are as close to C/C++ as Rust. As for logic.... Well, I want to say you'll get used to it, but for some things, it's not true. Rust is a struggle. Whether it's worth it, is your choice. I personally would take it over C++ any day.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

That doesn't really excuse its behavior in the video though.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I just don't understand this. You get used to the syntax and borrow checker in a day or two. It's a non-issue.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

I wouldn't say that. For primitives yeah, day or two. But if you want to build a proper program, it'll take time to get used to it. For my first few projects I just used clone everywhere. Passing by reference and managing lifetimes, specially when writing libraries is something that takes time to get used to. I still don't feel confident.

Besides that I do like Rust though. Sometimes I feel like "just let me do that, C let's me", but I know it's just adding safety where C wouldn't care.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

You get used to the syntax and borrow checker in a day or two.

As someone who spent a couple months learning rust, this was half true for me. The syntax? Yeah. No problem. The borrow-checker (and Rust's concept of ownership and lifetimes in general)? Absolutely not. That was entirely new territory for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Could you specify some kind of example where things were hard?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Unless you're a functional programming purist or coming from a systems programming background, it takes a lot longer than a few days to get used to the borrow checker. If you're coming as someone who most often uses garbage-collected languages, it's even worse.

The problem isn't so much understanding what the compiler is bitching about, as it is understanding why the paradigm you used isn't safe and learning how to structure your code differently. That part takes the longest and only really starts to become easier when you learn to stop fighting the language.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I see that my previous comment is not the common reality apparently.

I'm mainly a C# + js dev of a few years, and I would love to see what precisely other people here are having problems with, because I've had a completely different experience to most of the people replying.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I tried for about a week: reading documentation, viewing and modifying example programs, using a Rust IDE with warnings for all my silly mistakes, the works. I couldn't manage to wrap my head around it. It's so different from what I'm used to. If I could dedicate like a month to learn it I would, but I don't have the time :/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

At rhe beginning, I did hate it. Now I slowly embrace it as it seems like a feature to be mkre verbose.

But maybe it will never change and I will just gaslight myself liking it. Whatever.. you cant take my fun away learning rust for half a year

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You've been blue pilled by null. Once over the hurdle, it's very eloquent.

Null is ugly. Tony Hoare apology for inventing it should be enough reason to learn to do better.