No, that is why I wrote "subtle implication" there. Unfortunately on online forums, the term "memory-safety" (which is a well-defined term in computer science), is nowadays almost always used in contexts of Rust evangelism. I would be very surprised if the GP's actual intent was that Zoom must have been written in a garbage collected language and not Rust. The wider context of this discussion at all is that whether memory-unsafe languages (ie., C/C++) must be made illegal with the implicit suggestion that Rust must be pushed as the alternative. If C/C++ is made illegal (because "memory-unsafety"), then guess what would be the legal alternative if you can't afford GC overhead. Moreover, for people not using C/C++, the question of memory-safety/unsafety doesn't even arise in the first place.

> But the problem with your take is the subtle implication that Rust is "safe" (not just memory-safe) when in fact there is no empirical evidence or track record of Rust being successfully used in anything remotely mission-critical.

If you don't need the performance characteristics or OS-level interaction offered by systems languages, then please use an interpreted language. Please please please please please. But there aren't a lot of new projects started in C or C++ that fit this, since people have known for decades that using something else will be better if you don't need the specific features offered by systems languages.

> The wider context of this discussion at all is that whether memory-unsafe languages (ie., C/C++) must be made illegal with the implicit suggestion that Rust must be pushed as the alternative.

I never said this and it would be wildly ridiculous for me to suggest this. I mention Rust elsewhere to describe poorly written legislation, not to say that legislation must demand that everybody bow down at the feat of the Rust community and donate their first born child to the borrow checker.

You are reading way too much into my post.

Fair enough. I felt compelled to post in this thread because I've seen the "ban unsafe languages" sentiment expressed several times here and on Reddit before (especially on r/rust I remember reading some comments that had a hostile tone written by people who were serious about it). Your initial comment in this thread resembled one of those.

I think you've misunderstood why I mentioned Verona and Vale though. It is to challenge the notion that there could not be any other language than Rust that could be more ergonomic but with slightly different trade-offs. Moreover, I agree with your point regarding the ecosystem.

You sound paranoid.

That is a neat attempt at making it appear like I am somehow deluded and am imagining Rust evangelism. The person I replied to made a comment down thread that literally states that Rust must be given a free pass despite `unsafe` blocks on the face of such legislation against unsafe languages. Sounds completely illogical to me.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28343526

You can disable security features in java as well. Elsewhere, you mention GCed languages as an alternative. Would it be appropriate for me to assume that you are a java evangelist and then criticize you for not considering the harm that can be caused by turning off stack inspection? That's what you are doing to me.

The fact that the default is safe matters. It matters a lot. Heck, if you want to use C++ with a sound static analysis tool then I'd support doing that and I'd hope that legislation would support that too - but I think you'd be working 10x as hard as really necessary.

Yeah, I'm literally saying you are deluded and imagining things. The post you replied to mentions multiple GC and non-GC languages. That you also have a bad opinion about unsafe isn't really important.

Throwing ad-hominems at people criticising your language is not a good long term strategy, though it might appear to work for a while.

Not only there was not any "mentions multiple GC and non-GC languages" in the comment I replied or in the parent comments (except for single mention of C++), I also don't get why I have "bad opinion about unsafe" (and where I claimed it is important?). Such a friendly community. Now I see why people don't engage with Rust evangelists. Lesson learned. Anyway, have a nice day!