Google insists it's easy to add Rust code to your firmware
www.theregister.com
Not so much when trying to convert coding veterans

Google recently rewrote the firmware for protected virtual machines in its Android Virtualization Framework using the Rust programming language and wants you to do the same, assuming you deal with firmware.

In a write-up on Thursday, Android engineers Ivan Lozano and Dominik Maier dig into the technical details of replacing legacy C and C++ code with Rust.

“You’ll see how easy it is to boost security with drop-in Rust replacements, and we’ll even demonstrate how the Rust toolchain can handle specialized bare-metal targets,” said Lozano and Maier.

Easy is not a term commonly heard with regard to a programming language known for its steep learning curve.

Nor is it easy to get C and C++ developers to see the world with Rust-tinted lenses. Just last week, one of the maintainers of the Rust for Linux project - created to work Rust code into the C-based Linux kernel - stepped down, citing resistance from Linux kernel developers.

“Here’s the thing, you’re not going to force all of us to learn Rust,” said a Linux kernel contributor during a lively discussion earlier this year at a conference.

  • 0x0@programming.dev
    8312·
    4 months ago

    One of the deep-pocketed founding members of the Rust Foundation says it’s easy. I’m surprised.

    • Ephera
      245·
      4 months ago

      Wut? They’re a member, because they find Rust useful. This is just them saying another time that they find Rust useful.
      While they (and everyone using Rust) will benefit off of more people using Rust, it’s not like they have a vested interest to the point of spreading misinformation.

      • lysdexic@programming.devEnglish
        176·
        4 months ago

        They’re a member, because they find Rust useful. This is just them saying another time that they find Rust useful.

        Fans of a programming language stating they like the programming language is hardly thought-provoking stuff. There are also apps written in brainfuck and that means nothing as well.

        • Ephera
          72·
          4 months ago

          I’m pretty sure that’s not how dyslexia works, but either way, I didn’t write that. And while the title of the article suggests otherwise, the news here isn’t that Google says something is easy. The news is that they published a guide to make that thing easy.

      • lysdexic@programming.devEnglish
        1610·
        4 months ago

        Clearly Rust is a conspiracy.

        Anyone in software development who was not born yesterday is already well aware of the whole FOMO cycle:

        1. hey there’s a shiny new tool,
        2. it’s so fantastic only morons don’t use it,
        3. oh god what a huge mistake I did,
        4. hey, there’s a shiny new tool,
        • Spore
          10·
          4 months ago

          I assume that you do know that tools improve objectively in the cycle and are making a joke on purpose.

          • lysdexic@programming.devEnglish
            411·
            4 months ago

            If you had a grasp on the subject you’d understand that it takes more than mindlessly chanting “tools” to actually get tangible improvements, and even I’m that scenario often they come with critical tradeoff.

            It takes more than peer pressure to make a case for a tool.

            • Spore
              11·
              4 months ago

              mindlessly chanting “tools”

              That’s what you were doing in the first place. Instead of evaluating and trying new things, you are putting them in an imaginary cycle, ignoring any actual value that they brings.

              Also Rust has been on your “stage 2” for 10 years. It’s now widely used in multiple mainstream operating systems for both components and drivers, driving part of the world’s internet stack, and is used to build many of those “shiny and new tools”.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
          64·
          4 months ago

          Yeah, because the new tools are never actually better, right? If condescending luddites like you had your way we’d still be living in the literal stone age. At every step of the way, people like you have smugly said that the older, more established ways of doing things were good enough and new ways were just a fad that would die out.

          Your favorite language was dismissed as fad when it was new. High level languages were a fad. Computing was a fad. Electricity was a fad. See a pattern?

          Nice job projecting with the “only morons” bit, BTW, when it is in fact you who started off by denigrating people whose preferences are different from yours.

          • lysdexic@programming.devEnglish
            24·
            4 months ago

            Yeah, because the new tools are never actually better, right?

            Well, yes. How many fads have come and went? How many next best things already died off? How many times have we seen the next best thing being replaced by the next best thing?

            And yet, most of the world still runs on the same five languages: C, Java, C++, C#, JavaScript.

            How do you explain that, with so many new tools being so much better than everything?

            Might it be because fanboys tend to inflate their own definition of “actually better”, while turning a blind eye to all the tradeoffs they need to pretend aren’t there?

            • SporeEnglish
              71·
              4 months ago

              And yet, most of the world still runs on the same five languages: C, Java, C++, C#, JavaScript.

              Did you just assume that those languages exists since the dawn of computing? Or they run the world as long as they came to existence and were never “the new thing”? You are just contradicting yourself at this point to defend yourself from anything you don’t want to accept.

            • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
              72·
              4 months ago

              I’m old enough to remember when 4 of those 5 languages were the hot new thing. You’d have had me ignore them all and keep using C for everything. If I had done that I wouldn’t have even landed my first job.

              • lysdexic@programming.devEnglish
                11·
                3 months ago

                You’d have had me ignore them all and keep using C for everything.

                Please tell me which language other than C is widely adopted to develop firmware.

                You’re talking about so many up-and-comers during all these decades. Name one language other than C that ever came close to become a standard in firmware and embedded development.

                Right.