Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by eggy 3604 days ago
The LK inner construct is ~15KB. I don't think you could use Rust's safety features and get that size for the LK portion. Maybe the Magenta portion of it though.

"Magenta has a capability-based security model. In LK all code is trusted."

Pony lang is a PL using capability-based concepts too.
1 comments
steveklabnik 3604 days ago 

  > I don't think you could use Rust's safety features and get that size for the LK portion.
What do you mean? Rust's safety features are mostly compile-time; it shouldn't have implications for binary size. https://github.com/helena-project/tock is an RTOS that runs on an Atmel SAM4L Cortex-M4, and is about ~30kb in size, in my understanding. But that's for the whole OS...
link
eggy 3603 days ago
You're right about binary size. I shouldn't have worded it that way.

The point I attempted to make is that when you go small, and pare away what you used to create it, you could have used C and verified it with a certifier/prover. How does Rust address this goal? Truly curious, since I just started learning Rust. I program in C, not C++.

How does your example of the RTOS on the Cortex-M4 at ~30KB compare in complexity to LK at ~15KB in terms of what they deliver in that package size?

link
steveklabnik 3603 days ago
I don't know enough about LK to make the comparison.

  > How does Rust address this goal?
Currently? Not as well. There's no total proof framework for Rust yet, it's too early. In a few years? The same way, but with more "proven" by default, without the extra tooling. Tool maturity is certainly one of the areas where C has a leg-up on Rust, by virtues of being decades older.
link