Re:Rust in Android: move fast and fix things
by josephg on Thursday November 13, 2025 @10:03PM
(#45923384)
> That is a surprising opinion. Rust marketing is entirely based - like in this submission - on comparing its memory safety to C/C++ and saying that C is bad!
I'm not really sure what you expect here. Like, a large driving factor of using rust (compared to C/C++) is that it has better memory safety. Should rust not talk about that? Should we try and be careful about the feelings of C/C++ devs and not name the truth in the room around memory safety?
The reason android is moving to rust is because it decreases the memory related defect rate compared to C++. Should we shy away from talking about C++ memory bugs because they're somehow embarrassing?
When C came out, I'm sure a lot was written about how much easier it was to program in compared to assembly. Does that mean there's a feud between C and assembly? I'm sure some assembly developers felt under attack. But its not a feud. Just two tools with different use cases. That's how I see C and rust.
I'm not really sure what you expect here. Like, a large driving factor of using rust (compared to C/C++) is that it has better memory safety. Should rust not talk about that? Should we try and be careful about the feelings of C/C++ devs and not name the truth in the room around memory safety?
The reason android is moving to rust is because it decreases the memory related defect rate compared to C++. Should we shy away from talking about C++ memory bugs because they're somehow embarrassing?
When C came out, I'm sure a lot was written about how much easier it was to program in compared to assembly. Does that mean there's a feud between C and assembly? I'm sure some assembly developers felt under attack. But its not a feud. Just two tools with different use cases. That's how I see C and rust.