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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Rust in Linux lead retires rather than deal with more “nontechnical nonsense” (arstechnica.com)

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

191 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Linux people doing Linux things, it seems.

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

That's why I often recommend D instead.

Has a much more C-style syntax, except much more refined from the years of hindsight. The catch? No corporate backing, didn't jump on the "immutable by default" trend when functional programming evangelists said for loops are a bad practice and instead we should just write recursive functions as a workaround, memory safety is opt-in (although "safe by default" can be done by starting your files with @safe:), some of the lead devs are "naive centrists" who want to "give everyone a chance at coding even if they're bad people (nazis)", implementing new changes to the lang has slowed down significantly up until the departure of Adam D Ruppe and the drama surrounding it, etc.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"safe by default" can be done by starting your files with @safe:

Last time I heard about that it was much more limited than Rust, for example it even disallowed taking references to local variables. Has something changed since then?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

D has many memory safety features. For local variables, one should use pointers, otherwise ref does references that are guaranteed to be valid to their lifetime, and thus have said limitations.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For local variables, one should use pointers, otherwise ref does references that are guaranteed to be valid to their lifetime, and thus have said limitations.

Should I take this to mean that pointers instead are not guaranteed to be valid, and thus are not memory safe?

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

Pointers are not guaranteed to be safe. DIP1000 was supposed to solve the issue of a pointer referencing to a now expired variable (see example below), but it's being replaced by something else instead.

int* p;
{
  int q = 42;
  p = &q;
}
writeln(*p);     //ERROR: This will cause memory leakage, due to q no longer existing

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

Pointers are not guaranteed to be safe

So I guess they are forbidden in @safe mode?

but it's being replaced by something else instead

Do you know what is the replacement? I tried looking up DIP1000 but it only says "superceded" without mentioning by what.

This makes me wonder how ready D is for someone that wants to extensively use @safe though.

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

https://github.com/ZILtoid1991/newxml/tree/main

This XML parser of mine uses safe by default.

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

It also seems to require a GC though...

newxml is GC only, for simplicity sake.