alt Hacker NewsIt doesn't have to all-or-nothing. Firefox has been a mixed C++ and Rust codebase for years now. It isn't like the code is written twice. The C++ components are written in C++, and the Rust components are written in Rust.
I suspect that'll also be what happens here. And if the use of Rust is successful, then over time more components may switch over to Rust. But each component will only ever be in one language at a time.
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VoxPelli • today at 5:38 PM
Firefox was special in that Mozilla created Rust to build Servo and then backported parts of Servo to Firefox and ultimately stopped building Servo.
Thankfully Servo has picked up speed again and if one wants a Rust based browser engine what better choice than the one the language was built to enable?
You can't compare the choices made to evolve a >20 years old codebase with a brand new one. Firefox also as Rust support for XPCOM components, so you can use and write them in Rust without manual FFI (this comes with some baggage of course).
The Ladybird devs painted themselves in a corner when choosing C++ for a new web browser, with many anti-Rust folks claiming that "modern C++ was safe". Well...