Google Supports Getting Rust Into The Linux Kernel

[s_j_newbury]

I agree. They're just an easy company to pick in a thought experiment. Facebook, Sony, Microsoft, or any other number of companies probably have more of a reason than Google.

I'm more curious in the GPL to Compatible ratio. I think it would be weird if it was actually less than 50% GPL...Like a "Huh, that's odd and not what I expected" weird.

100% is GPL, since that's the license it is distributed under. The whole point of compatible licenses, is they do not conflict with re-licensing under the GPL! Non-GPL code in the kernel is only "non-GPL" when you get it from the upstream copyright holder, or a distribution under another license, any code in distributed under "Linux" is copyright(/left) as a whole. Not that it is likely to get you into any trouble if you reuse "non-GPL" code you've copied from the kernel ostensibly under another license, since how can it be proved that's where you got it from? Although you probably want to keep that to yourself...

Mind you, IANAL

[Zan Lynx]

On the whole, a lot of Rust code makes my eyes hurt.
Some of it is not that bad, but damn can Rust look like somebody puked all over the place.

As per usual, I guess it's a property of whomever is writing, not the language.
I hope the readability level doesn't degrade.

A lot of that is just not being used to reading it. A second part is that Rust programmers are in love with lambdas and so you end up with function calls that include functions, and in those functions are more function calls with their functions... sometimes it is nice to write it that way but I do wish more people would make a named function. This is actually a problem for C++ as well.

[60Hz]

Linus does not

Rust trannies absolutely and irredeemably btfo. Hopefully they'll 41% themselves now.

[60Hz]

C won't go away in the next decade or two, but looking at Rust it's pretty clear it has grown from a language loved by enthusiasts to something the big players are starting to take stock of.

Rust will be discarded before it ever reaches widespread adoption. It leaves a HUGE amount of room for improvement and their "our way or the highway" attitude towards build systems continues to burn bridges.

Some other, more pragmatic language will come along and eat their lunch and nothing of value will have been lost.

[sn99]

I think most people here and even in the linux community have little to no experience with Rust, they should try porting some of their projects into Rust and see how it goes and then decide. It is fait o say Rust does have some advantages but it can still be considered a bit "new".

[60Hz]

I think most people here and even in the linux community have little to no experience with Rust, they should try porting some of their projects into Rust

You should try taking your own advice.... but you can't because you don't have any projects.

Next!

[SvenK]

Google should invest in https://rust-gcc.github.io/ if they even wanna see rust in the kernel.

They should invest development power, If they want to see it before next year. There is some progress done but one man alone can't so it as fast as a team.

[Veto]

"on the whole I don't hate it"

Is Finnish for: "I am deeply in love with it"

... OK your explanation was more nuanced

[cynical]

On the whole, a lot of Rust code makes my eyes hurt.
Some of it is not that bad, but damn can Rust look like somebody puked all over the place.

As per usual, I guess it's a property of whomever is writing, not the language.
I hope the readability level doesn't degrade.

I had a big problem with this as well. They have improved the compiler's ability to infer types and lifetimes though. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be. My understanding of Rust has improved also, and this lets some of the syntax (in particular, lifetimes) fade into the background a bit. The biggest thing that helps imo is type aliasing:

type Link<K> = Box<Node<K>>;    // much nicer!

struct Node<K>
where
K: PartialEq + Clone + Ord,
{
pub key: K,
next: BTreeMap<K, Link<K>>,
ends_here: bool,
}

[ssokolow]

And like all comedy, it's funny because it's true.

It was accurate to a part of the community (that we old-timers are very irritated by since we are left running damage control) until the "this is just compiler source code" came along.

Rust is currently defined by the set of accepted RFCs.