this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024

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Google says replacing C/C++ in firmware with Rust is easy (www.theregister.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Google recently rewrote the firmware for protected virtual machines in its Android Virtualization Framework using the Rust programming language and wants you to do the same, assuming you deal with firmware.

In a write-up on Thursday, Android engineers Ivan Lozano and Dominik Maier dig into the technical details of replacing legacy C and C++ code with Rust.

"You'll see how easy it is to boost security with drop-in Rust replacements, and we'll even demonstrate how the Rust toolchain can handle specialized bare-metal targets," said Lozano and Maier.

Easy is not a term commonly heard with regard to a programming language known for its steep learning curve.

Nor is it easy to get C and C++ developers to see the world with Rust-tinted lenses. Just last week, one of the maintainers of the Rust for Linux project - created to work Rust code into the C-based Linux kernel - stepped down, citing resistance from Linux kernel developers.

"Here's the thing, you're not going to force all of us to learn Rust," said a Linux kernel contributor during a lively discussion earlier this year at a conference.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Clearly Rust is a conspiracy.

Anyone in software development who was not born yesterday is already well aware of the whole FOMO cycle:

hey there's a shiny new tool,
it's so fantastic only morons don't use it,
oh god what a huge mistake I did,
hey, there's a shiny new tool,

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I assume that you do know that tools improve objectively in the cycle and are making a joke on purpose.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If you had a grasp on the subject you'd understand that it takes more than mindlessly chanting "tools" to actually get tangible improvements, and even I'm that scenario often they come with critical tradeoff.

It takes more than peer pressure to make a case for a tool.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

mindlessly chanting “tools”

That's what you were doing in the first place. Instead of evaluating and trying new things, you are putting them in an imaginary cycle, ignoring any actual value that they brings.

Also Rust has been on your "stage 2" for 10 years. It's now widely used in multiple mainstream operating systems for both components and drivers, driving part of the world's internet stack, and is used to build many of those "shiny and new tools".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

There you go again flinging insults at anyone who disagrees with you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, because the new tools are never actually better, right? If condescending luddites like you had your way we'd still be living in the literal stone age. At every step of the way, people like you have smugly said that the older, more established ways of doing things were good enough and new ways were just a fad that would die out.

Your favorite language was dismissed as fad when it was new. High level languages were a fad. Computing was a fad. Electricity was a fad. See a pattern?

Nice job projecting with the "only morons" bit, BTW, when it is in fact you who started off by denigrating people whose preferences are different from yours.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, because the new tools are never actually better, right?

Well, yes. How many fads have come and went? How many next best things already died off? How many times have we seen the next best thing being replaced by the next best thing?

And yet, most of the world still runs on the same five languages: C, Java, C++, C#, JavaScript.

How do you explain that, with so many new tools being so much better than everything?

Might it be because fanboys tend to inflate their own definition of "actually better", while turning a blind eye to all the tradeoffs they need to pretend aren't there?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

And yet, most of the world still runs on the same five languages: C, Java, C++, C#, JavaScript.

Did you just assume that those languages exists since the dawn of computing? Or they run the world as long as they came to existence and were never "the new thing"? You are just contradicting yourself at this point to defend yourself from anything you don't want to accept.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I'm old enough to remember when 4 of those 5 languages were the hot new thing. You'd have had me ignore them all and keep using C for everything. If I had done that I wouldn't have even landed my first job.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

You’d have had me ignore them all and keep using C for everything.

Please tell me which language other than C is widely adopted to develop firmware.

You're talking about so many up-and-comers during all these decades. Name one language other than C that ever came close to become a standard in firmware and embedded development.

Right.