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Comment by onlycoffee | Hacker News Reader

> It's not possible for humans to write correct and secure C code on an ongoing and consistent basis.

https://drewdevault.com/2019/03/25/Rust-is-not-a-good-C-repl...

"Safety. Yes, Rust is more safe. I don’t really care. In light of all of these problems, I’ll take my segfaults and buffer overflows."

"I understand that many people, particularly those already enamored with Rust, won’t agree with much of this article. But now you know why we are still writing C, and hopefully you’ll stop bloody bothering us about it."

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> "Safety. Yes, Rust is more safe. I don’t really care. In light of all of these problems, I’ll take my segfaults and buffer overflows."

The problem is that when you write a program in C for the public, this program's buffer overflows and segfaults aren't a problem only for you, but also for everyone around you. Security vulnerabilities are a serious problem. You can think of them as a form of software pollution: "Safety. Yes. Asbestos is unsafe. I don't really care. In light of all the these problems with fiberglass, I'll take my lung cancer and expensive structure remediation".

See what I mean? We all have an interest in secure software, and the aesthetic preferences expressed in the article to which you've linked have to take a back seat to ecosystem robustness and information security.

Unfortunately, this pro-C cowboy attitude is entrenched in this industry. It's going to take a lot of retirements to move us forward.

> The problem is that when you write a program in C for the public, this program's buffer overflows and segfaults aren't a problem only for you, but also for everyone around you.

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Say hello to pledge and unveil.

I'm reminded of the adage that the lower the stakes, the more seriously people take stuff. Using C is not remotely on par with asbestos, let's have little perspective.

I'll second that - it seems that a new hype train is to just bash C, mostly by people who aren't familiar with it.

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