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by quotemstr 1311 days ago
> "Safety. Yes, Rust is more safe. I don’t really care. In light of all of these problems, I’ll take my segfaults and buffer overflows."

The problem is that when you write a program in C for the public, this program's buffer overflows and segfaults aren't a problem only for you, but also for everyone around you. Security vulnerabilities are a serious problem. You can think of them as a form of software pollution: "Safety. Yes. Asbestos is unsafe. I don't really care. In light of all the these problems with fiberglass, I'll take my lung cancer and expensive structure remediation".

See what I mean? We all have an interest in secure software, and the aesthetic preferences expressed in the article to which you've linked have to take a back seat to ecosystem robustness and information security.

Unfortunately, this pro-C cowboy attitude is entrenched in this industry. It's going to take a lot of retirements to move us forward.

3 comments

I'm reminded of the adage that the lower the stakes, the more seriously people take stuff. Using C is not remotely on par with asbestos, let's have little perspective.
I'll second that - it seems that a new hype train is to just bash C, mostly by people who aren't familiar with it.
> The problem is that when you write a program in C for the public, this program's buffer overflows and segfaults aren't a problem only for you, but also for everyone around you.

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