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One Of The Rust Linux Kernel Maintainers Steps Down - Cites "Nontechnical Nonsense"
(www.phoronix.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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The kernel is mostly written in C, by C developers... understandably they're rather refactor C code to make it better instead of rewritting everything in the current fancy language that'll save the world this time (especially considering proponents of said language always, at every chance they get, sell it as C is crap, this is better).
Linux is over 30yo and keeps getting better and more stable, that's the power of open-source.
C is crap for anything where security matters. I'll happily take that debate with anyone who thinks differently.
I think most people would agree with you, but that isn't really the issue. Rather the question is where the threshold for rewriting in Rust vs maintaining in C lies. Rewriting in any language is costly and error-prone, so at what point do the benefits outweigh that cost and risk? For a legacy, battle-tested codebase (possibly one of the most widely tested codebases out there), the benefit is probably on the lower side.
Seeing as how 40% of the security issues that have been found over the years wouldn't exist in a memory-safe language, I would say a re-write is extremely worth it.
If the timeline is long enough then it's always worth the refactor.
Isn't that exactly the strawman the maintainer got tired of?
Hmm... I admit I didn't follow the video and who was speaking very well and didn't notice hostility that others seem to pick up on. I've worked with plenty of people who turn childish when a technical discussion doesn't go their way, and I've had the luxury of mostly ignoring them, I guess.
It sounded like he was asking for deeper specification than others were willing or able to provide. That's a constant stalemate in software development. He's right to push for better specs, but if there aren't any then they have to work with what they've got.
My first response here was responding to the direct comparison of languages, which is kind of apples and oranges in this context, and I guess the languages involved aren't even really the issue.
Part of the hostility was the other maintainer misunderstanding the presenter, going on a diatribe about how the kernel Rust maintainers are going to force the C code to become unrefactorable and stagnate, and rudely interrupting the presenter with another tangent whenever he (the presenter) tried to clarify anything.
An unpleasant mix of DM railroading and gish galloping, essentially.
~~I wouldn't quite call it a strawman, but~~ the guy was clearly not engaging in good faith. He made up hypothetical scenarios that nobody asked about, and then denigrated Rust by attacking the scenarios he came up with.
Edit: I was thinking of the wrong fallacy. It is a strawman, yes.
This seems to be the textbook description of a strawman argument.
Wait, yeah. I was thinking of ad hominem when i wrote that, sorry. Correct, that is a strawman.