There was quite a bit of interest in getting Rust parsers into VLC a few years ago[1], is there any update on this -- will we ever see core VLC code using Rust?
Personally, I'd love to :)
One annoying point is that the core API, used by the modules, can change at any time (the modules are updated along with the API).
If there are Rust bindings for the core API [1], every API change must be reflected in Rust (and in modules written in Rust). This is problematic.
> interface with other languages…
Many languages that compile to native code allow you to export functions in a way that they can be called from other C code.
This means you'd write your actual code in whatever language you want (possibly one that does have a generic vector in its standard library - but I guess these days that's anything but C) and then you'd just export a usable-by-C interface so other languages still get to interface with your implementation.
I agree, that's a waste of time I would have preferred to avoid. The lack of a such basic structures is something I really dislike in C.
> Remind me again, why C is a good thing and not a liability these days?
Ubiquity, portability, performance, interface with other languages…