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Dec 20, 2017

Part of the reason I'd go with C# or F# is because it *can* interface with C code better than many languages. You need libraries, C has all the libraries, and if you're using C libraries you'll inevitably sometimes need to write C code.

Brendan Zabarauskas

@brendanzab

Dec 20, 2017

F# is a fine language too, if you need to run .NET. It helps to know C, but I definitely would not want to be writing any more of it in 2018, unless in a legacy code base or if the platform is out of reach of LLVM. Rust has a great C FFI, and can be embedded in other runtimes.

ЬᏂauϮᏂ

@peroxycarbonate

Dec 20, 2017

If you use C libraries and never need to edit them somehow....consider yourself lucky, I guess.

Brendan Zabarauskas

@brendanzab

Dec 20, 2017

That’s what I’d class as ‘legacy’.

Brendan Zabarauskas

@brendanzab

Dec 20, 2017

New libraries in Rust with a C ffi. Gradual migration after that.

ЬᏂauϮᏂ

@peroxycarbonate

Dec 20, 2017

As an individual decision, that's fine. For a company, I think that would be a strategic mistake.

Brendan Zabarauskas

@brendanzab

Dec 20, 2017

It does very much depend on your context. For us we don’t want to deal with the cost of memory safety bugs and security vulnerabilities.

Brendan Zabarauskas

@brendanzab

Dec 20, 2017

For smaller embedded programs that are mainly stack allocated, fine, but we’re dealing with large, concurrent software with hard to track lifetimes. Rust brings lots of sanity to that.

ЬᏂauϮᏂ

@peroxycarbonate

Dec 20, 2017

You're at Mozilla? Working on Firefox Quantum?

Replying to

I’m at

, also working on font shaping and browser engines though. We’re small, and don’t have time and money to burn on memory safety/security issues. Currently transitioning our legacy C code to Rust. The rest is in Mercury.

11:18 PM · Dec 20, 2017Twitter for iPhone