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Comment by pcwalton | Hacker News Reader

> I think a much more interesting question is how much safer a code written in rust today would be vs a C/C++ code written today , reflecting our current understanding and knowledge on how to build safe system.

A lot safer, judging by browser exploits.

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> reflecting our current understanding and knowledge on how to build safe system...

Browser engines are more indicative of the current "understanding and knowledge of how to build safe systems" than nearly any C++ codebase in existence.

Part of the current "understanding and knowledge of how to build safe systems" is to use a memory-safe language.

Despite all the flashy tools that proponents of C and C++ claim that makes C++ as safe as Rust, it's not doing any good at stopping the exponentially-increasing amount of vulnerabilities and crashes that are being reported over the last few years.

You have no data at all to back this up. The vulnerabilities you speak of are, far more often than not, written in old-style C and C++. That doesn't make Rust a bad idea, but it does mean your claim is completely unsubstantiated.

Advocating for Rust by lying is not going to help anyone.

This is the same line of logic and statements repeated by C and C++ programmers that shortly thereafter get showed up with a list of CVEs in their 'modern C/C++' projects. Remember the recent Curl developer PR disaster?

I think it's too early to tell if rust will prove any better in the real world, which includes things like devs using unsafe sections to cope with time pressures.

Use of unsafe in Rust is not required or recommended in most, if not all situations. That said, auditing a handful of small unsafe blocks is easier than auditing an entire project.

The question then is whether large chunks in unsafe is still better than the entire program in the equivalent of unsafe (C).

Yes, it's the same line of logic because it's correct.

The claim that Rust's memory safety is sound while C++'s is not is... not really the question. The question is whether that matters in practice. C++ has certainly improved in making certain mistakes easier to avoid.

Now, I come down on the Rust side for many situations, but making unsubstantiated claims about your language of choice is exactly the problem people had with the Curl blog post. Please stop making them about Rust.

You've living in some serious denial. You were given a point that proves that your line of thought is incorrect, and you continue on to completely ignore that point by stating that it is correct. So tell us, o'wise one, why is that top C and C++ projects are continually riddled with CVEs, crashes, and other severe issues that are 90+% the fault of C and C++? Why is it that veteran, experienced C/C++ programmers are still making these same mistakes 20, 30, and even 40 years into their careers?

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