undefined | Better HN

0 pointsnickpsecurity10y ago0 comments

You've been in discussions on this forum where I slam both C and C++. I'm clearly against it unless I absolutely have to use it due to its issues. That's why your strawman is more amusing than most. My actual argument was that new tools are usually unstable in terms of features, implementation bugs, and (with compilers) performance. So, default recommendation for mission-critical apps are mature tools whose strengths and weaknesses are well-understood so pro's can use them robustly.

Back to beta-phase claim, you're saying the core features and compiler of Rust are no longer in development or testing? Totally stable now with only extensions, library features, and optimizations being added? If so, that's good news and I'll drop that claim in the future. Otherwise, it's in the beta phase. Another hint would be existence of any bugs with core functionality in your compiler or libraries.

Again, though, if the spec and core functionality are frozen with all bugs fixed then I won't call it beta. Is it there yet?

0 comments

pcwalton10y ago

Yes, 1.0 is stable and the language will not change in backwards incompatible ways. It's been that way for months (google "rust stability deliverable").

"All bugs fixed" rules out every language in existence except CompCert, so I don't think that's a very interesting metric.

nickpsecurityOP10y ago

Good to know on stability part. Far as bugs fixed, it's more on the lines of day-to-day use of the language in common scenarios. Are people getting unnecessary troubles out of the compiler? Typically don't for most languages as they work out most of them in common idioms and library functions in first, few years. If they're serious rather than 1-3 people's hobby, that is.

I certainly won't expect it to be bug free. Nice comeback with CompCert, though. ;)

fiedzia10y ago

I've seen rust compiler bug once and that was long before 1.0. The only issue now is that some important API's are not yet declared stable (RFC still being open), so many 3rd-party libraries target nightly and won't work in stable. This is however matter or 1 or 2 releases, and proves that rust developers take this matter seriously and don't wont to stabilize anything they aren't 100% sure. For all practical purposes rust is usable now, and more and more people are using it - certainly more then 3. Generally looking at rust projects on github, most of issues are feature requests. I don't see issues with crashes or panics, while I know plenty for similar projects written in C, at least in their early days.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse