Linus Torvalds Speaks on the the divide between Rust and C Linux developers an the future Linux. Will things like fragmentation among the open source community hurt the Linux Kernel? We’ll listen to the Creator of Linux.
For the full key note, checkout: Keynote: Linus Torvalds in Conversation with Dirk Hohndel
The Register’s summary: Torvalds weighs in on ‘nasty’ Rust vs C for Linux debate
Yes
But the trade off is well worth it.
For who?
You
It can be, sure. I prefer garbage collectors but I’m not doing systems programming.
I feel like a garbage collector would be too much a performance hit for kernel stuff.
2 things:
It’s more the determinacy, a GC randomly fires up and your systems stops for some long amount of time. There are pauseless GCs but that’s a different nightmare.
The kernel has things similar to GCs. They’re used for more specialized tasks, and some (like rcu) are absolute nightmares that have take decades to get working.