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You know a language has arrived when its toolchain ships as a standard component with operating systems.
Rust, Mozilla's language for safe and speedy systems level programming, has landed a prime-time slot in the next edition of Fedora Linux, according to the change set for the first public alpha for Fedora 25.
This doesn't mean that any system components in Fedora will be authored with Rust -- yet. But it does mean that Fedora users, many of whom are developers, will have easy access to Rust's ecosystem in their Fedora environments.
[...]Fedora's rationale for including Rust stems from both the language's growing popularity and its potential relevance to Fedora's user base. Aside from citing Rust's presence in the 2016 Stack Overflow Developer Survey as one of the most loved languages, Red Hat noted, "Mozilla is starting to use Rust in Firefox, and now Fedora's Firefox maintainers could enable those components."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @02:46AM
Rust is a centralized point of failure with no second source compiler to bootstrap against (the ocaml version was removed 5 years ago, and they radically changed the language in the meantime so it wouldn't be useful to bootstrap short of rebuilding every minor version in the interim.)
Combined with the 'bless' signing architecture, which could be good, but in this case only ensures if the compiler is compromised, only the compromised compiler will be blessed, it starts seeming like far less of a smart idea to rely on. The go/swift-like level of linguistic and ABI/API instability also seems like a concern for pushing it into distros at this point in time. Its use in Mozilla products is also concerning to me at this point given the questionable level of scrutiny they have put into other aspects of their software development history.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday September 02 2016, @03:19AM
Yeah, I really can't imagine anyone I would consider competent or trustworthy using something so closely associated with such a thoroughly compromised organization as Mozilla, frankly. But this is RedHat we're talking about. The pit of horrors from which SystemD, and the new Gnome horrors, originate, the demonic domain which supports Poettering, deliberately freeing him from the need to do productive work to support himself so he can be evil full-time.
No, wouldn't expect anything else from them actually. Why do the editors still give these assholes exposure by posting stories about them as if they were news here?
Frankly I'm more likely to be interested in what Microsoft is pushing than anything from Redhat. I can't believe I was actually excited about their IPO, once in the distant past, before they turned completely against humanity.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Funny) by JNCF on Friday September 02 2016, @06:31AM
Don't leave the house yet Arik, you forgot your trusty (╯°□°）╯彡 <tt>teletype tags!</tt>
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Friday September 02 2016, @07:27AM
Rust is an interesting language. One of our own SN team is using it fairly frequently, and I have used it to help learn the basics. It is> a new language and it is still developing but that doesn't make it bad. All languages started out the same way at some point. It is fast and it does prevent many of the problems that one might have using other languages.
From Red Hat's point of view, systemd is doing exactly what they want it to do. Poettering is writing the software that his employers want him to write. You and I may not like it but he has to get food on his table, just the same as everyone else has to. I'm prepared to hazard a guess that you haven't actually tried using Rust, and so might also be talking from a fairly weak position and allowing your bias to influence your brain.
Remember when personal computers were just becoming popular - Nascoms, Commodores, TRS-80s, etc - how we all thought that Microsoft was a brilliant company that would revolutionize computing by bringing standard software to anything that could run their operating system? Well, where are Nascom, Commodore, et all now? Microsoft did exactly what we all wanted them to do in the 1980/90s and no-one can argue that they have been successful. Perhaps what now appears to be a stupid move by Red Hat will actually become something quite important to computing in business and industry in a few years time. Maybe Rust will become the next 'big thing' once its development has settled down. Likewise, systemd doesn't suit our needs but that doesn't mean that it doesn't suit anyone else's needs either. Perhaps the advantages that it gives to Red Hat in producing and supporting cloud systems, self-restarting VMs, and giving them a standardised linux base that they can exploit more readily will bring them business success. We are not what systemd is being written for. If you don't like, don't use it, or change to something else.
We report such things because:
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday September 02 2016, @10:02AM
Perhaps what now appears to be a stupid move by Red Hat will actually become something quite important to computing in business and industry in a few years time.
Right on, the single most important mistake in modern computing history right after using Windows in nuclear power plants and other essential infrastructure. ;)
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday September 04 2016, @09:45PM
I remember soldering my first board together, actually, before Commodore. So yes, I remember.
"how we all thought that Microsoft was a brilliant company that would revolutionize computing by bringing standard software to anything that could run their operating system?"
No 'we all' never thought that. If you did, sorry, but that just means you were severely ill-informed. Microsoft is a company that produced one program, a basic interpreter that ran on everyone else's operating systems. That's how they got the foot in the door, and what have they produced since then? I'm having a very hard time thinking of anything that was actually theirs. DOS was purchased for a song by Tim Patterson, WindowsNT was purchased more dearly by hiring away DECs OS team and ordering them to re-implement it with a Windows shell on top. IE? Spyglass mosaic code, paired with a trademark ripped from another company. They probably want credit (can that be the right word?) for "Windows" based on Windows1, but that was just one of many GUI shells for DOS, essentially a half-assed GEOS clone, and has practically nothing to do with modern Windows, nor was it in any way innovative, it was just a poor imitation of what came from Xerox PARC. Word? Oh, did I mention Xerox PARC already?
In all seriousness, MS hasn't created anything since Altair Basic. They just watch the market, buy out the turds that are doing well, and then they polish and market said turds. When they face technical competition they kill it in any way possible except for competing with it on the merits.
"Microsoft did exactly what we all wanted them to do in the 1980/90s and no-one can argue that they have been successful."
No, they did nothing that 'we' wanted in 80s/90s, nothing at all. If you measure success by money and power you can call them successful, they've certainly been paid well for the harm they've done and continue to do. They're very good at making money by abusing their customers, they've elevated that to an art form, but if that's your idea of success then we'll have to agree to disagree.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday September 05 2016, @07:15AM
Well, by 'we', I meant the majority. Until Linux, BSD and Mac subsequently entered the market, Windows was the only operating system in widespread use. It held a bigger share of the market than it does today. Yet, even today and despite that fact that we both dislike the company and its products, they still hold the market share. Windows 7 alone has more users than all OS/X versions in use today. You can say what you will, it is still a very successful company. One does not have to like their techniques and practices to realise that they are still a major player. They haven't produced anything innovative, but they have certainly marketed the overall package that, until more recently, has not even been challenged. Today, the Mac is also popular and Android knocks Microsofts products into the long grass as far as mobile devices are concerned.
All this is, of course, a detraction from TFS. It is Red Hat that is making progress - not in our eyes but certainly in the business world - and it is their employee who is responsible for pushing systemD down the linux users throats. And, again from their point of view, it is with a sound business idea behind it which has the potential to be a good move on their part. Rust has the ability, over time, to replace C/C++ given time. Of course, many will grumble and deny the new pretender but that doesn't mean it will necessarily fail.
As an aside, like you I started in the very early days. I built my first Nascom 1 from a bare circuit board and a bag full of components, following that with a Nascom 2 which I eventually converted into a Galaxy. Z80a, 4Mhz clock, and 8MB (I think) of RAM with a _5MB_ hard-drive! The Galaxy is no longer in use but is still in working order in my own Aladdin's cave. Those were the days .....
(Score: 3, Touché) by tangomargarine on Friday September 02 2016, @02:08PM
Bad news is still news.
Frankly I'm more likely to be interested in what Microsoft
Case in point.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Friday September 02 2016, @03:22AM
All I can say is that from the (little) use I've given it, it's a fantastic language that will go a long way in improving security, concurrency, and crashes, especially compared to C. Hope any problems you're describing can be fixed.