Rust developers offered $20k for rav1d to reach C performance

developer-tech.com

4 pointsfork-bomber3 comments

its kinda funny they say this: The big no-no: Both dav1d and rav1d share the exact same low-level assembly code optimisations. You absolutely “cannot modify this assembly.” The improvements must come from the Rust code or the compiler. Also, no sneaking in code written in other languages; it’s Rust all the way for rav1d.

I mean, ur using Assembly of all things, but it's Rust all the way?

The goal is to improve things for the Rust ecosystem; they are using this project as a vehicle for doing that.

Improvements that benefit only this piece of software are great, but not worth paying money for.

In such scenarios, the assembly routines lend themselves to relatively easier manual scrutiny - given that they are smaller in size compared to the much larger higher level language code in the project.

It's the latter that really needs the compiler's assistance to help remove memory safety issues (it is much harder for humans given the code size and complexity order). The fact that that safe higher level language code is inter operating with inherently unsafe code (as per the Rust definitions) is absolutely OK.

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