Comment by gigel82

2 days ago

The title is "bombastic"; yes, a slight edit, but one that changes the meaning, especially taken out of context. What he said was that if a maintainer doesn't want to deal with Rust they don't have to deal with Rust but they also don't get to tell users of the code they maintain how (or whether) to use Rust.

> If you don't want to deal with the Rust code, you get no say on the Rust code.

FWIW, I think C++ would be much better suited for the Linux Kernel than Rust, and so much easier for C developers to adopt.

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gigel82

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dralley  2 days ago

Allowing C++ would lead to endless debate over exactly which subset of C++ is allowed in the kernel, and would be a pain in the ass to police.

The point of Rust is that it offers enough facilities to the programmer that you can right near-bulletproof APIs from a memory and thread safety perspective, it has momentum with a younger and enthusiastic group of developers, and it doesn't have the problem about what to allow and what not to allow to nearly the same extent. That means the potential exists for a net-reduction in time spent reviewing code for misuses of various APIs.