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Zig's approach is really nice here, but it's also a notably easier problem to solve than rust has, since it's not trying to solve for parallel/concurrent safety.

Do you think Zig's approach would be feasible in Rust? I guess maybe you could do it, but the sync version would have to have the stricter constraints of the async version.



I'm holding out for formal-methods based static analysis on lifetimes in zig.


Not possible for the same reasons why just adding a borrow checker to C++ isn't possible. Mostly this comes down to incompatibility with existing code. Zig is just not memory safe, and the only solution would be to add a GC.


If you don't consider Swift style Automatic Reference Counting a GC, then there is another option.


The problem with ARC in swift is that it’s always atomic. This is fast enough on ARM, but on x86 it’s really slow


That's a form of garbage collection. :)


This is a very bad take. By your argument there's no reason why sel3 should exist, which is written in C and safer than rust.


Assuming you mean seL4, that was formally verified by taking a manual specification of the L4 kernel and laboriously proving that the C code implements that specification. That is not at all what the compiler's lifetime/borrow check subsystems do for Rust. They know nothing about what the program is supposed to do; they only check that some relatively-simple rules are followed. That's why Rust requires so much less effort on the part of the programmer than formalisms that aim to prove programs correct.


Nobody is arguing anything on the level of doing a full on Sel4 -- but

Sel4 does have generalized no memory leak, no uaf guarantees as a subset of all specification proofs, so my point "memory safely is possible to bolt onto even C" is still valid.


feel free to keep writing c, as long as you prove all your code memory safe. i'm gonna take a stab and say writing rust is easier.




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