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Comment by marcosdumay | Hacker News Reader

> I suspect that if Rust continues forward with this approach it will basically end up as the code where someone goes to read the actual semantics to determine what the C code should do.

That will also put it on the unfortunate position of being the place that breaks every time somebody adds a bug to the C code.

Anyway, given the cultures involved, it's probably inevitable.

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> That will also put it on the unfortunate position of being the place that breaks every time somebody adds a bug to the C code.

Can someone explain charitably what the poster is getting at? To me, the above makes zero sense. If the Rust code is what is implemented correctly, and has the well-defined semantics, then, when the C code breaks, it's obviously the C code's problem?

I think a charitable interpretation is that given that the Rust code will be less forgiving, it will "break" C code and patterns that "used to work", albeit with latent UB or other nonobvious correctness issues. Now, obviously this is ultimately a good thing, and no developer worth their salt would seriously argue that latent bugs should stay latent, but as we've already seen, people have egos and aren't always exceedingly rational.

Well, thanks.

It's not exactly that the Rust implementation will be less forgiving. But developers will have a clear picture of the operations semantics, while C developers will have a harder time understanding the operations, and consequently avoid them.

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