Re:Introducing Swift
by pcwalton on Monday June 02, 2014 @08:23PM
(#7837413)
> I think you may be aiming for a level of safety, or perhaps a notion of "perfection", that isn't practically obtainable.
I believe it is, as the basic structure and rules of the borrow check (which is the part of Rust that's truly unique) have proven themselves to be quite usable. The usability problems remaining are implementation and precision (e.g. issue #6393), not big problems that will require large redesigns.
> The recent, and rather disruptive, box changes are a good example of this. We see change, and those of us with existing Rust code sure do feel the change, but very little convergence seems to be happening.
Yes, it is. The number of outstanding backwards incompatible language changes is decreasing. People who do Rust upgrades notice how the language is changing less and less.
> A memory-safe programming language that can't actually be used is pretty much irrelevant. It's better to accept some slight amount of imperfection if that means it can actually be used.
"Some slight amount of imperfection" means not memory-safe. Java didn't settle for that, C# didn't settle for that, Swift isn't settling for that, and we aren't settling for it.
I believe it is, as the basic structure and rules of the borrow check (which is the part of Rust that's truly unique) have proven themselves to be quite usable. The usability problems remaining are implementation and precision (e.g. issue #6393), not big problems that will require large redesigns.
> The recent, and rather disruptive, box changes are a good example of this. We see change, and those of us with existing Rust code sure do feel the change, but very little convergence seems to be happening.
Yes, it is. The number of outstanding backwards incompatible language changes is decreasing. People who do Rust upgrades notice how the language is changing less and less.
> A memory-safe programming language that can't actually be used is pretty much irrelevant. It's better to accept some slight amount of imperfection if that means it can actually be used.
"Some slight amount of imperfection" means not memory-safe. Java didn't settle for that, C# didn't settle for that, Swift isn't settling for that, and we aren't settling for it.