Re: Checking out src with Mercurial

[Sad Clouds <cryintothebluesky%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 12:19:30 -0400
Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost> wrote:

> Sad Clouds <cryintothebluesky%gmail.com@localhost> writes:
> 
> >> The idea of having to build rust to get a "less resource demanding
> >> implementation" would be great comedy if it weren't such a serious
> >> problem.
> >
> > The Mercurial developers have an opinion that it is very difficult
> > to develop and maintain reliable software in C. So the search goes
> > on for the silver bullet - Python, Rust, Go, etc.
> 
> Sure - but my point is that rust is extremely difficult to deal with,
> and is basically impossible on low-resource machines or unusual
> architectures.  For those who haven't been following along, there has
> been basicallya continuous tale of woe in pkgsrc-land for the last 6
> months at least, and perhaps that's fairly said to be multiple years.
> 
> So the idea that Johnny can build rust on his vax and then use some
> hg-rust on it would be laughable, if it didn't point out that the
> people deciding to use rust appear not to care about anything other
> than a handful of OS/CPU types.

What I find a bit strange is the idea that developing something in
Python + C, then re-writing it in a hipster language like Rust, is more
reliable than just using well designed C/C++ code.

OK C is not perfect, but if software reliability is the main concern,
how many control systems operating aircraft, railway, or nuclear power
station are written in Python or Rust? Probably none.

And as you mentioned, if you can't use the tool on old VAX or SPARC
machines, that are still supported by NetBSD, the whole point of the
tool becomes rather irrelevant.