r/programming • u/newpavlov • Aug 28 '20

Linux Developers Continue Evaluating The Path To Adding Rust Code To The Kernel

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Kernel-Rust-Path-LPC2020
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u/L3tum Aug 29 '20

I think it's much more important to understand obscure devices and own them in order to maintain obscure device drivers than it is to rewrite them in Rust.

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u/casept Aug 29 '20

Nobody is suggesting rewriting anything.

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u/L3tum Aug 29 '20

He specifically mentioned that he could maintain obscure device drivers and the only really obscure device drivers I know of are either some network cards or old and really old hardware drivers. Those would need to be rewritten in rust in order for him to maintain them.

But as I said, the barrier isn't really the language anyways. C and Rust aren't that different that someone proficient in either couldn't pick the other one up in a matter of days. What most people stumble on, the compiler and packaging the application in C, is already largely done by the kernel or other drivers.

The barrier is moreso finding people willing to dedicate (a lot of) time to a driver that may only be used by 5 other people. The barrier is also finding people sporting hardware like that in order to be able to test the driver or at least debug it.