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A comment on Volvo is using Rust for its in-vehicle software. Parent comment

Re:Volvo is using Rust for its in-vehicle software by drdaeman on Saturday September 24, 2022 @02:01PM (#32965105)
The language won't fix it (it's just a tool after all), though it may enforce certain rules that help the developers not shoot themselves in the leg. Rust has some fairly strong guards, as long as you don't circumvent them. At least it takes some conscious effort to make a Rust program segfault, and almost every IoT appliance (non-automotive, though, I haven't worked with those) I've had that I've reverse engineered had a command that could crash it - I've rebooted my cat feeder way too many times to my liking.

What could be an important change is the culture. At the very least, developers who tend to pick Rust may be (hopefully) more inclined to do things the right way and don't just slap shit on the codebase until it sticks. I've seen way too much of this attitude in embedded developers.

And another important change could be management policies. If they are conscious to pick something uncommon, they might have better tolerance toward spending more time but doing things properly, than pushing people to release whatever seem to work (somehow).

I'm pretty sure a lot of bullshit in IoT happens because management want to release things as fast as it's possible, and developers either don't care or can't fight it.

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Re:Volvo is using Rust for its in-vehicle software by stubish on Saturday September 24, 2022 @06:59PM (#32967355)
The language will fix a chunk of it. Much buggy code simply cannot be compiled, and if you can't compile it you can't ship it. You are mostly left with logic and design errors, which can become more obvious due to the language. Middle management will hate it because due to the language they lose much of their ability to compromise on quality, passing the buck. Upper management may love it or hate it, depending on how serious they are about improving quality, as the language forces the spending for that level of quality.
[ Parent | on HN ]