For performance sensitive code, you sometimes need to deliberately step out of the strongholds of the compiler.
...or just add more primitives to the language.
If you mean "constant" primitives, i.e. things which don't require to expand the language grammar or type system, then it's a question of future prevalence of usage of said primitives. If they become almost ubiquitous to any project, then they obviously need to be included in the standard libs. If you're talking about a new language feature, that depends on how much that new feature may help design and write future libraries, and also what are the aims of said language. I understand that rust aims to become a safer system language, so any feature helping the design of low level, performance critical code should be welcome.
I don't understand this. If you write in a safe language, the compiler rules out the memory safety bugs, regardless of the problem.
> But the macro point is just empirical: the proof that Rust is an appropriate tool for codec development needs to come in the form of a production-quality codec implementation of some non-trivial standard (VP9, say), not a HN post.
Of course, no argument there. I am reasonably confident that we can get there with tuning though, based on our benchmarks so far. :)