Comment by gary_0
10 months ago
Positive, yes, but can you point to where he says R4L is here to stay and an integral part of the kernel? He needs to commit, or drama like this will continue to boil over. He also seems content to let the C-only old guard give the R4L guys a hard time. If you only enforce the rules on one side of a conflict, it makes it pretty clear which side you agree with.
Nothing in Linux is "here to stay", it always has to demonstrate its worth, and what it's worth is depends enirely on the technology and its developers, not Linus.
Perhaps C is here to stay and that is the way Linux should live and naturally die. That's what's being proposed here by the guy who opposes multi-language projects.
That's my overall point of view too. Regardless of infinite technical discussions about one or another, if Alice and Bob can't live together than just don't get married.
Why spend all this energy on conflict and drama to no end? If one language/technology/group is so much better then just fork the thing and follow their own path.
I'm actually not defending the C guys, I just want to leave them alone and let "Nature" take his course, if they die on obsolescence, then they die. who cares..
4 replies →
Most UNIX systems that were not implemented in C, and thus lacked the symbiotic relationship, never survived in the market, sadly.
There have been UNIX systems implemented, Pascal, Ada, Modula-2, Modula-3, as the most relevant ones.
All gone.
Also note that POSIX/UNIX certification requires a C compiler presence.
22 replies →
Yes, perhaps a C-only Linux would do that and die, and perhaps it would continue its customization of C flavor and runtime it uses (e.g., the various static and dynamic memory limitations and checkers) and closes the gap with Rust to a point where the incremental benefit of using it is not significant enough that it makes a Rust based competitor an inevitability. We may already be beyond that point, even.
6 replies →
This is inevitable: Rust is proposed as a safe language, but there is no way to have a "half-secure" kernel. The only option for people who believe in Rust is to have its own kernel, and Linux should have no part on this.
1 reply →
Keeping the project single language doesn't mean that the project can't change. The C used today is not the same C used when when the project was started. Changing language is also possible. Using two different languages long-term however means that everyone effectively needs to be proficient in both languages and a lot of work is duplicated.
Would you say that C is "here to stay" in Linux? I would say so. I think you understood what was meant.
The drama is the problem, not rust. I don't know why, but either zealots choose rust or rust induces zealotry.
Its exactly what Linus said.
4 replies →
No I wouldn't say that. If Rust or another language eventually proved itself more value than C and things were eventually all rewritten, C would go away.
For that matter the C of Linux 10 years ago was not there to stay either, it has changed and certain features and practices are deprecated and dropped and others adopted. It's not the same C.
DEC Alpha support is somehow still in the mainline Linux kernel...
Slowly getting removed: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/e8612e21-4ea4-4e6f-8c73-9fbee11...
1 reply →
The ghost of the Alpha's infamously weak memory model coming back to bite it's undead self.
Yeah m68k is still around too and it has more than a decade on alpha.
People use and maintain them and they have very little impact outside arch/ nowadays so they're on the happy side of cost/benefit I guess.
4 replies →