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Comment by tehnub | Hacker News Reader

I enjoyed the article and learned something. But I've been wondering: When people say "rewrite in a memory-safe language", what languages are they suggesting? Is this author rewriting parts in Go, Java, C#? Or is it just a smirky, plausibly deniable way of saying to rewrite it in Rust?

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Author here, thanks! A second article will cover this, but the bottom line is that it entirely depends on the team and the constraints e.g. is a GC an option (then Go is a good option), is security the highest priority, etc.

I’d say that most C++ developers will generally have an easy time using Rust and will get equivalent performance.

But sometimes the project did not have a good reason to be in C++ in the first place and I’ve seen successful rewrites in Java for example.

Apple is rewriting some C++ code in Swift, etc. So, the language the team/company is comfortable with is a good rule of thumb.

Makes sense, thanks!

So you saw a post about C++, it didn’t mention “Rust” once, mentioned “memory safe” languages which there are dozens of, and yet found a way to shoehorn in a dismissive comment about a meme. Nice.

We’ve reached the rewrite-in-rust meme stage of questioning whether the author is a nefarious crypto-Rust programmer in lieu of not being able to complain about it (since it wasn’t brought up!).

(author actually shows up to advocate for rust)

Author actually replies that Go, Java, Rust, Swift are options depending on the context, and that general considerations like security are relevant as well. But whatever helps you grind your axe!

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