Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 18, 2024 15:02 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++ by pizza
Parent article: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

> ....congratulations, Rust is finally beginning to have to grow up and face the harsh fact that in the real world, developers will write crappy [1] code that violates any number of "cultural norms" or "best practices" [2] and there is *nothing* that can be done about it!

Except the whole discussion started with example which directly contradicts your assertion.

Yes, developers will write crappy code, but that's not a problem by itself. It only becomes a problem when crappy code becomes popular and is starting to affect other people while developer ignores the issue. And that can be fixed. It was done pretty successfully, or else we wouldn't have had this discussion at all.

> Indeed, any exclusionary actions will likely lead to some expensive legal trouble.

Seriously? When was Kim reinstated as the lead of Actix-web and his opponents were sent to jail?

> Rust-the-project has no legal (or moral!) ability to ostracize or otherwise exclude anyone from writing software in Rust, putting it online with a warranty disclaimer, and random third parties incorporating/using it.

Indeed. But that doesn't mean that “nothing can be done”, as you assert. People are people, they find a way to achieve their goals. And if simple and obvious way doesn't work they find a roundabout way.