Talk on what a systems programming language needs to replace C

[Russel Winder]

On Mon, 2019-08-26 at 06:51 +0000, IGotD- via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Sunday, 25 August 2019 at 10:06:07 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar 
> wrote:
> > https://youtu.be/l9hM0h6IQDo
> 
> What he doesn't mention is that compared to other languages many 
> of the algorithms and programming models will not work in Rust 
> and you have rethink them often making them more complicated and 
> slower. Therefore I think Rust is a bad fit for "system 
> programming".

Given that the person's goal is to make Rust a superset of C, I do not see how
you make the above inference. What algorithms and programming models are
possible in C that are not possible in Rust?

I suspect if there are N programmers in the world, there are 3N+10 definitions
of "systems programming". Go developers have changed their mind on the
definition a few times over the years.

> The entire talk is about evangelizing Rust contrary to what he 
> says. He also says he constantly have to add more stuff into the 
> language in order to make work better as a systems programming 
> language which kind of contradicts the idea that Rust is suitable 
> for system programming.

I disagree. He clearly states he isn't evangelising Rust but hopes that people
feel evangelised for Rust due to the talk, which is weird. The entire talk is
about transforming Rust to be a superset of C.

> There are other languages that can do anything C can without any 
> changes to the language.

And Rust is already one of those. 

Given there is C and people feel it is time to move on to a better language,
and we have D, C++, Rust, and Go as the obvious candidates, there is a problem
none of these are actually candidates for the job of replacing C. Even Go,
which is supposed explicitly to be C for the 2010s.

-- 
Russel.
===========================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk

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