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Because when people spend enough time rewriting things, rewrites becomes an end in itself rather than means to an end.

"Rewriting curl" has become a meme and is a good teaching example of when engineers don't grasp the complexity of the requirements

On the other hand, if you "rewrite curl" but only support Linux and Windows on x86_64, well, that task is probably achievable

To see if they can? This is HN after all :)

In the spirit of discussion, this article (2021) makes the argument that it would correct existing bugs in curl:

> There are 95 bugs [in curl]. By my count Rust would have prevented 53 of these [in 2021].

https://blog.timhutt.co.uk/curl-vulnerabilities-rust/

The curl author (Stenberg) has said:

> I don't believe in rewrites, no matter which language. I believe in replacing code and fixing components gradually over time. That could mean that we have a curl written mostly in rust in 10 years. Or in 20 years. Or not.

https://archive.is/Bs16c