this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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I'm not against Rust, per se, the idea of a systems programming language with some more advanced memory safety features sounds nice, but what is with the emphasis on creating a Rust version of everything? Like why should we want an OS written only in Rust?
People keep saying this but Rust is not only about memory safety. It's not C with memory safety sprinkled on top. Compare with C and C++ it has better tooling and dependency management, it's easier to create modules and organize your code, it's easier to write tests and it has loads of nice, modern language features like algebraic types and typeclasses. Because of all this Rust is growing fast and a lot of people like it. Writing things in Rust is a bet that more people will get behind them and you will be able to add more features faster to them than to existing projects in C. The idea is not to simply do the same but in Rust. It is to have a cleaner, easier to approach codebase that will allow to grow faster in the future.
It would certainly be interesting to see if an OS written in Rust can end up being notably more reliable and secure. My curiosity is piqued by the features you mention.
Yeah, but I don't know any other language where the fact a program is written in that language is used as a selling point. I never cared that Linux was written in C, I cared that it does its job. I've heard about Redox many times, yet never once has there ever been anything said about it other than "it's written in Rust! :D" Literally, the fact that it's a UNIXY operating system written in Rust is the first thing about the OS on their home page.
Hey, Linux started as a learning project, you learn more about programming by writing code, so I'm not saying it's bad, I just can't understand why I'd care about something that at this stage seemingly is just a learning project.
But it happens all the time with other languages. Especially when that language is newer or in the headlines. NodeJS/Electron was a big one a few years ago. Ruby/On Rails a while before that, have seen it for python programs and way back in the day when java was all the rage.
Personally I think it does matter and as a end user I do care to come degree. It tells you some things about the program, like how it can be install/run what deps you might need, is it going to be a memory hog or possibly full of vulnerabilities. The language affects all of these things, more so when the projects are new or niche and have not been hardened over time or been properly packaged yet.
Personally I love it when a program is written in languages like rust or go as it means I know it is going to be easy to build/install and distribute given they build into single binaries and very easy to make static. But if I see one written in nodejs with electron I am disappointed as I know it is going to be a huge package that consumes large amounts of memory. Or if there is some python package that is not already packaged by my distro I would avoid it as I hate dealing with python dependencies and its virtualenvs.
And for this case, with redox. Well redox is not an application to be used by people. It is a showcase about what can be done in the language. It is not intended for most people that hear of it to ever run it or even want to run it. Yet is very impressive what they have managed to do in it. Including having parts written for it be able to work standalone in Linux and other OSs.
I'm looking at how many of the bugs and security issues are due to memory unsafe code - it's A LOT and new ones come up almost daily. Humans are just bad at writing safe code because we are so fallible. So if we can eliminate a significant percentage of these bugs from the ground up that suddenly becomes very interesting. Besides personally after two decades of C and C++ (and debugging them) I find Rust much more pleasant and "ergonomic" to use.
If we want an OS to be more secure by design we really have to begin at the most basic level. It might never be perfect but we can greatly reduce the attack surface. This is also why Microsoft is rewriting a number of vulnerable system components of Windows in Rust.
So why is it important to the end-user? Well, if that's Average Joe, maybe not but Redox OS right now is not mainstream, it is for us nerds who are interested in a safer OS and to see what can be done in that space. Maybe you don't care and that's fine, but some of us do and just like any post here, people can chose to skip over it or dive into the discussion, we can't guarantee that all posts or projects are interesting to everyone :)
That's fair, I'm just saying it's not "OS with memory safety" but "OS written in modern language". I guess it's interesting in itself but yeah, definitely not groundbreaking.
Some thoughts:
Eh, I welcome the iteration. It gives people a reason to practice and hey, who knows, maybe they'll come up with something neat while rewriting curl or something
- Ferris
This is one of my main gripes with the rust community. What programming language you used shouldn't be of any concern to the end-user, let alone be put in the tagline.
Rust is a very good and capable language and I enjoy using it. I can't wait for the day it overtakes C or C++. But I want to know more about the program I'm using other than that it was written in a popular language.
"Written in rust" is basically a meme at this point.
This is typical of when a language is the new hotness. It eventually dies down, either because the language becomes endemic or it fades away.
not necessarily about the language, but things periodically getting rewritten or re-implemented is a useful exercise. it's a moment for reflection and analysis of the structures and systems as a whole
Rust has characteristics that basically represent a value proposition for the user. An OS that can be higher performance, better at concurrency, more robust, and more secure sounds pretty good to me. They could make those claims and I could not believe them or they could tell me it is written in Rust and I would hope for all of them.
Of course, the language is not a guarantee of anything but it does tell you something about the tailwind that this project will have.
Python implies a bunch of things as well. None of those things make it sound great for an OS and I would assume the worst if an OS project told me they were using Python ( for the core ).
Personally, I am very glad that they tell me the project is written in Rust. I am sorry it bothers you.
It sounds like a elective complaint about Rust though as most OS projects tell you the language up front including C and C++. C++ seems especially eager to announce itself as a superior choice to C. I have not done much research but can tell you what language even most commercial operating systems are written in as they are usually pretty open or even vocal about it. Sometimes they are proud of what the did not pick ( see Linus opinions of C++ for example ). Haiku and SerenityOS, in contrast, brag about C++ and have even made YouTube videos about it.
It is not just OS projects either. I mean, why does GitHub display the language used as a standard project feature after all?
Rust is used by modern people to create modern programs. If the program would be in C++ for example, a very complicated, error-prone language, that gives me insight into how well (or not) that program might be supported in the future
Languages are easier to work with the bigger the ecosystem.
I've been installing a lot of things written in rust recently, and I've noticed a trend between them. They're all stable, fast, and very user-friendly. I don't really have to fiddle with them nearly as much. I think there's a lot that goes into this, but it really boils down to: rust is safer and prevents huge categories of bugs, it's incredibly stable and requires less debugging and maintenance, it has extremely high level abstractions to make development quick and less verbose, and it has the best tooling I have seen for any language. It enables developers so effectictively that the things that are usually tedious and difficult become easy and potentially mandatory, and so you just get better software.
I know that sounds pretty abstract and opinionated, but having used the language for several years now, and especially coming from Java, I have really felt an incredible difference - I stopped having to constantly fix breaking Gradle builds and JVM version management, I stopped getting null pointer exceptions, and I had much more powerful tools for building abstractions. When you see how much control and power rust gives you while still keeping you safe, it's just night and day compared to the especially old languages like C.
Basically, anything written in rust will be better if it can enable developers to spend their time working on useful features instead of fixing bugs, fiddling with build systems and fragile legacy infrastructure cobbled together from dozens of third party tools.
The language is newer so it does a lot of things better than C, C++ and even higher level langs like java. It is more probable that people in the future build upon Rust than legacy languages.
Comparable to how it would be misguided now to start a project that only runs on Xorg