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Linus Torvalds: Speaks on the Rust vs C Linux Divide
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this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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I took notes for the benefit of anyone who doesn't like their info in video form. My attempt to summarize what Linus says:
He enjoys the arguments, it's nice that Rust has livened up the discussion. It shows that people care.
It's more contentious than it should be sometimes with religious overtones reminiscent of vi versus emacs. Some like it, some don't, and that's okay.
Too early to see if Rust in the kernel ultimately fails or succeeds, that will take time, but he's optimistic about it.
The kernel is not normal C. They use tools that enforce rules that are not part of the language, including memory safety infrastructure. This has been incrementally added over a long time, which is what allowed people to do it without the kind of outcry that the Rust efforts produce by trying to change things more quickly.
There aren't many languages that can deal with system issues, so unless you want to use assembler it's going to be C, C-like, or Rust. So probably there will be some systems other than Linux that do use Rust.
If you make your own he's looking forward to seeing it.
Not a programmer whatsoever but I've heard about Zig and people comparing it to Rust, what's the deal with it?
Zig is "c", but modern and safe.
The big selling points compared to Rust are:
The syntax is really close to the C language; any C programmer can pick up Zig really fast.
IMO Zig is a far better choice to go in the kernel than Rust.
Linux has tried to include CPP in it, and it failed.
So imagine if trying to fit in a C-like cousin failed, how far they are to fit an alien language like Rust...
For more information: https://ziglang.org/learn/why_zig_rust_d_cpp/
Zig is safer than C, but not on a level that is comparable to Rust, so it lacks its biggest selling point. Unfortunately just being a more modern language is not enough to sell it.
C++ was not added to Linux because Linus Torvalds thought it was an horrible language, not because it was not possible to integrate in the kernel.
Zig has other selling points, that are arguably more suitable for system programming. Rust's obsession with safety (which is still not absolute even in rust) is not the only thing to consider.
It is absolue in safe Rust, aka 99% of Rust code.
UB is only one class of error though. I get nervous when people talk about re-writing battle hardened code which has been used - and reviewed by the community - for decades because there are going to be many subtleties and edge cases which are not immediately apparent for any developer attempting a re-implementation.
Like sudo that has had zero days lurking for 10 years?
I'm not advocating for reimplementing stuff for no good reason though.
You mean old code that has bugs that are no just being discovered. Battle hardened code and many eyeballs means nothing.
Zig is a very new and immature language. It won't be kernel-ready for at l'East another 10 years.
That's pretty suggestive. Rust syntax is pretty good. Postfix
tryis just better for example.Zig also uses special syntax for things like error and nullability instead of having them just be enums, making the language more complex and less flexible for no benefit.
Syntax is also not everything. Rust has extremely good error messages. Going through Zig's learning documentation, half the error messages are unreadable because I have to scroll to see the actual error and data because it's on the same line as the absolute path as the file were the error comes from
That's a library design question, not a language question. Rust for Linux uses its own data collections that don't perform hidden memory allocations instead of the ones from the standard library.
I don't know, Rust is one of the most readablelangueage for me.
Is it still the case once you have a very large project and make use of comptime?
Not true. Because it doesn't have the guardrails that rust has, you must build a mental model of where the guardrails should be so you don't make mistakes. Arguably this is something that C maintainers already know how to do, but it's also not something they do flawlessly from just looking at the bugs that regularly need to be fixed.
Being able to write code faster does not equate being able to write correct code faster.
Yes, because it's basically C with some syntax sugar. Rust is a Generational change.
But that wasn't about the syntax, but about the fastnesses, size and control, want it? Things that shouldn't be much of an issue to Rust.