From Stacks to Trees: A new aliasing model for Rust
ralfj.de
ralfj.de
It changes the abstract rules behind rust's safety model, which impacts which unsafe functions are considered sound, and which optimizations the compiler is allowed to perform.
fn main() {
let mut x = [1,2,3,4,5];
let y = &mut x[0];
let z = &x[1];
println!("y {}... z {} ", y, z);
}
This is what the footnote of the bit about &(i32, Cell<i32>) clarifies (which footnote was added due to this misunderstanding, discussed in https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/13y8a9b/from_stacks_t...).
> In particular, for &(i32, Cell<i32>), TB allows mutating both fields, including the first field which is a regular i32, since it just treats the entire reference as “this allows aliasing”.¹
> ¹ This does not mean that we bless such mutation! It just means that the compiler cannot use immutability of the first field for its optimizations. Basically, immutability of that field becomes a safety invariant instead of a validity invariant […]
This matter of safety versus validity invariants is key (https://www.ralfj.de/blog/2018/08/22/two-kinds-of-invariants...).
So, I realize that this is the way that Java does it--and, presumably, one still doesn't get fired for doing whatever Java does ;P--but, would it not actually make more sense for the arguments to be evaluated before the target reference, making the argument order more like Haskell/Erlang (but very sadly not Elixir, which makes it awkwardly incompatible with Erlang and breaks some of the basic stuff like fold/reduce)? Particularly so, given that, as far as I can tell from this example, what makes arg0 have the type that it does is the type of the function that hasn't even been called yet? (As in, the semantic gap I am seeing between what the user probably meant and what the compiler wants to do is that "x" shouldn't really be mutably-borrowed until the call happens, and the call here clearly shouldn't happen until after the arguments are evaluated.) (Note: I do not program in Rust currently; I just have spent a number of decades analyzing languages and at times teaching college language design courses. I might be missing something obvious elsewhere that forces Rust to do this, but that one example, in isolation, at least feels like an unforced error.)
{println!("first"); 1u32}.wrapping_add({println!("second"); 1});
But this could theoretically be done at an edition boundary.
Enum.map(list, func)
def mapper(func), do: Enum.map(func)
incrementer = mapper(fn x -> x + 1 end)
incrementer(list)
If you did however, swapping the arguments would break most partial application patterns you see in languages like Haskell, OCaml, Elm and even JS.
But the jury is definitely still out for if the pattern of showing it in syntax and semantics actually is beneficial. And yes, I know nearly all the examples you can come with to show how useful it can be.
But the cost of having it seems to more than compensate the benefits.
The reason I like Erlang is because of the BEAM (+ OTP) combined with idiomatic pattern matching, I don't miss currying in neither language.
I think there are many more severe problems with Elixir which make it not even a remotely functional PL for me (rather, procedural + macros), but arguments order is not one of them.
> I think there are many more severe problems with Elixir ... but arguments order is not one of them.
Cheers, I have no dog in this game, merely expanding on what (I think) OP was alluding to.
Yep, I have no dogs here either :^)
If it does, then the order of evaluation of a.foo(b) would depend on whether foo is a field or a "free-standing" function of a, which seems horrible.
Also, there is a simple elegance in having the order of evaluation match the order the symbols are written that should require a very hight bar to reverse, in my opinion at least.
Once you get the &mut reference, you have your tree, which then looks to me like you have created a transaction. An in this transaction context you do your things.
fn two_phase(mut x: Vec<usize>) {
let arg0 = &mut x;
let arg1 = Vec::len(&x);
Vec::push(arg0, arg1);
}
Does anybody else wish the compiler wouldn't and would be even more verbose? I know one of the biggest learning curves (personally) for Rust is the borrow checker complaining hardcore and "getting in your way" preventing you from basically doing anything you're used to (passing around pointers in C or objects in JavaScript (even though you should be following immutable practices and not doing object mutation... most of the time))
I'm sure there's probably been discussions on how to make the borrow checker less "mean/rigid/obtuse" but silently passing something as "non mut" and it actually does "mut" stuff, I wouldn't have guessed Rust allowed that.
Edit: gah, I did not realize the function signature is (mut x), I thought it was just (x) and the mut was implied which is what I was trying to call out, apologies.
Compiler being obtuse and not being able to figure when it is safe to "break rules" is the problem. Not twisting brain of the programmer into being "safe compiler". This sounds like a Stockholm syndrome.
>"you should be following immutable practices"
No I should not. I should do what makes sense in particular situation and not bending over for some zealots trying to enforce one and the only way.
I'm not a rust user myself, but I'm guessing from all the references to raw pointers that a lot of the code referenced here is actually not idiomatic for all but small snippets of high perf code, so maybe the complexity is not going to affect too many people.
I think this approach shows a high level of disrespect for users.
Compiler afaik will never be able to correctly 100% identify you are or aren't breaking some properties due to Rice's Theorem.
That said, you're committing a Nirvana fallacy. Perfect doesn't prevent improvement.
E.g. seatbelts don't prevent being stabbed by a large metal pole, ergo it's useless.
Every week I see newbies coming and asking why won't compiler allow this - and then point a hugely unsafe action.
Hell, I ran into a similar issue. I wanted to expose something mutable as immutable. My argumentation was but it was immutable at time of calling. However as someone in Rust discord pointed, using that you could cause UB trivially.
Nobody here is talking about 100%. I responded to a post that has left me with the impression that it is up to the user to bend backwards and make their brains work as a compiler rather than try to improve compiler.
What do you mean? You always have to track lifetimes and what outlives what (i.e. work of a compiler). Especially in C++. Not doing that results in UB.
In Rust you have a compiler double checking you. And it errs on side of caution. And no, errors aren't horrible, they come with suggestions for fixing them.
Lifetimes don't go away just because there isn't a borrow checker or way to define them in the source code.
No, it's the opposite that's happening here: a mutable borrow of the vector is made, and then a non-mutable thing is done with it (getting the length), before finally mutating it (pushing).
You have ownership of a Vec, you get its length, then you push to it through a mutable reference; nothing evil happens here except the order of the statements (which is an implementation detail that people might not think about when writing the short form x.push(x.len())). The code above is perfectly safe if written in C, which is why the borrow checker was extended to also allow it in Rust. You could make the argument that simpler borrow checker rules lead to a simpler mental model. The counterargument (that won in the end) is that "if it's safe, the borrow checker allows it" is a mental model worth pursuing.
fn two_phase(mut x: Vec<usize>) {
x.push(x.len());
}
The standard implementation of Rust does indeed accept this, and there is no soundness hole here.
The existing semantics for aliasing and borrowing from MPI (Stacked Borrows) don’t allow this, which means the semantics are overly restrictive; we want this to be accepted.
This work “fixes” this issue by extending the semantics to admit the behaviour exhibited by the standard implementation.
The rules for the borrow checker are not fully formalised and to some extent the rustc implementation is the specification; formalising the rules (i.e. RustBelt, Stacked Borrows, etc.) is important, but we don’t want to formalise something that is strictly more restrictive than the reference implementation, especially if there’s no soundness hole.
I’ve worked in OOP languages, functional languages, and dynamic languages but all of them were essentially garbage collected, so having to keep track in my head of how data ownership is managed is a big learning curve.
I can outsource this to the compiler and if I get it wrong the program won’t compile.
In c++ you still need to do all the same tracking and management if you want safe and correct programs, but you don’t get nearly as much help from the compiler if you make a mistake.