Comment by vlovich123
1 day ago
> Even C/C++ can be made memory safe, cf. https://github.com/pizlonator/llvm-project-deluge
> Fil-C achieves this using a combination of concurrent garbage collection and invisible capabilities (each pointer in memory has a corresponding capability, not visible to the C address space)
With significant performance and memory overhead. That just isn't the same ballpark that Rust is playing in although hugely important if you want to bring forward performance insensitive C code into a more secure execution environment.
Fil-C has advanced a lot since I last looked at it:
> Fil-C is currently 1.5x slower than normal C in good cases, and about 4x slower in the worst cases.
with room for optimization still. Compatibility has improved massively too, due to big changes to how it works. The early versions were kind of toys, but if Filip's claims about the current version hold up then this is starting to look like a very useful bit of kit. And he has the kind of background that means we should take this seriously. There's a LOT of use cases for taking stuff written in C and eliminating memory safety issues for only a 50% slowdown.