Re:Graphics Team ships WebRender MVP
by jerheinze on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @08:33AM
(#19969515)
Since Rust is a memory safe language with nearly the same performance as C
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EDIT: Parent commenter edited the comment to append "with the same performance as C", so you can ignore my reply.
So is Python, JavaScript, Java, OCaml, Haskell...
A more distinguishing feature of Rust is not only that it is memory safe but also that it doesn’t have a GC.
In any case the presence of a single unsafe block can make the program no longer memory safe. Of course, if used appropriately, it vastly reduces the audit surface compared to something like C++.
Re:Graphics Team ships WebRender MVP
by Someone1234 on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @09:12AM
(#19969797)
None of those have nearly the same performance as C.
GP edited the comment, so now my reply looks silly.
OCaml can have nearly the same performance as C.
Re:Graphics Team ships WebRender MVP
by chronogram on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @09:23AM
(#19969887)
Is GC a negative? I’ve yet to see anyone go “well I would’ve written this in Golang but it’s got GC”. Even that new Windows driver style, where it’s split in two, can have half of it being GC’d, right? Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Frameworks at least.
> I’ve yet to see anyone go “well I would’ve written this in Golang but it’s got GC”.
This is a dealbreaker in a lot of contexts where garbage collection pauses would be unacceptable.
Yes, GC is a negative. There is a huge literature in measures to mitigate its negatives. These always involve trading off one against another, and libraries are frequently incompatible with any particular mix of them.