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Comment by eptcyka | Hacker News Reader

Memory leaks are by far the least interesting class of defect that Rust helps with - leaking memory is safe.

And in fact is not even something that Rust does differently from C++. Memory releases in Rust are handled by dtors just like they are in C++. What a weird article.

(The only difference is that Rust defaults to moving while C++ defaults to copying, and Rust moves don't leave a moved-out object behind while C++ does, so the dtors in Rust are simpler and called fewer times than the equivalent C++ code.)

Yes, the only difference.

I'll add that even safety itself is not the sole reason why some people prefer Rust. There's a lot to Rust besides that and sometimes it's not about memory safety as much as it is about steering you into patterns Rust devs perceive as better overall.

Until the kernel kills you for being OOM.

That's still safe.

EDIT: Safe in the sense you're not writing into memory you don't own, e.g. write after release, buffer overflows etc.

Program that no longer runs is the safest.

For true safety we must prevent it from being written in the first place /s

That's the true meaning of backward compatibility. The [backward] refers to the time scale.

stomps butterfly

I've just saved untold generations from certain calamity.

** 6,000,000 years later **

Butterfly King: This chimpanzee-descended motherfucker ….

Possible attack vector, though.

The least interesting attack vector. You can fix it by rebooting.

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