logoalt Hacker News

phicohyesterday at 9:40 AM1 replyview on HN

Those seems to be independent issues. Fil-C is about the best way to compile/run C code.

Rust would be about what language to use for new code.

Now that I have been programming in Rust for a couple of years, I don't want to go back to C (except for some hobby projects).


Replies

thomasmgyesterday at 9:58 AM

I agree. The main advantage of Fil-C is compatibility with C, in a secure way. The disadvantages are speed, and garbage collection. (Even thought, I read that garbage collection might not be needed in some cases; I would be very interested in knowing more details).

For new code, I would not use Fil-C. For kernel and low-level tools, other languages seem better. Right now, Rust is the only popular language in this space that doesn't have these disadvantages. But in my view, Rust also has issues, specially the borrow checker, and code verbosity. Maybe in the future there will be a language that resolves these issues as well (as a hobby, I'm trying to build such a language). But right now, Rust seems to be the best choice for the kernel (for code that needs to be fast and secure).

show 1 reply