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Comment by microgpt

7 hours ago

Would using Rust have prevented this?

I get that it’s fun to dunk on Rust when a Rust bug surfaces. But is it a bit petty to bring this out when there’s any type of bug of any severity in any Rust software?

In this case a small minority of requests were getting truncated responses.

No one said Rust software is bug free. If someone thinks that they’ve been seriously misled.

No. Anyone expecting that hasn't read No Silver Bullet essay.

  • Actually I suspect that Rust is a Silver Bullet in that sense. That essay seems to be a case where people know of the essay but haven't read it. Normally in English a "Silver Bullet" is something much bigger, a panacea or cure all which entirely solves a problem but in his essay Brooks is talking about order-of-magnitude improvements, and that looks a lot like Rust.

    Brooks was expecting such "Silver Bullet" improvements as often as every few decades, we're arguably overdue significantly. He cites Ada as an example of where such an improvement might come from, well, Rust isn't Ada but a lot of the same ideas about correctness are present.

    Google reports order of magnitude changes from their Rust work for example.