if false {
const _:() = panic!();
}
Fails to compile in Rust.
fn main() {
const {
if false {
let _:() = panic!();
}
}
}
«inline else» is also very powerful tool to easily abstract away code with no runtime cost.
Sure, but you lose the clarity of errors. The error wasn't in `comptime unreachable` but in `inline .a .b .c`.
Nobody knows whether Rust and/or Zig themselves are the future of low-level programming, but I think it's likely that the future of low-level programming is that programmers who prefer one approach would use a Rust-like language, while those who prefer the other approach would use a Zig-like language. It will be intesting to see whether the preferences are evenly split, though, or one of them has a clear majority support.
The drift over time is predictable, compared to ten years ago Rust has fewer false positives, C++ has more false negatives.
You are correct to observe that there is no middle choice here, that's Rice's Theorem, non-trivial semantic correctness is Undecidable. But I would argue we already know what you're calling the "false positive" scenario is also not useful, we're just not at the point where people stop doing it anyway.
Also, treating all languages that don't ensure full memory safety as if they're equally problematic is silly. The reason not ensuring memory safety is bad is because memory unsafety as at the root of some bugs that are both common, dangerous, and hard to catch. Only not all kinds of memory unsafety are equally problematic, Zig does ensure the lack of the the most dangerous kind of unsafety (out-of-bounds access) while making the other kind (use-after-free) easier to find.
That the distinction between "fully memory safe" and "not fully memory safe" is binary is also silly not just because of the above, but because no lanugage, not even Java, is truly "fully memory safe", as programs continue to employ components not written in memory safe languages.
Furthermore, Zig has (or intends to have) novel features (among low-level languages) that help reduce bugs beyond those caused by memory unsafety.
spiffyk•2h ago
dwattttt•2h ago
If a dead code elimination pass didn't remove the 'comptime unreachable' statement, you'll now fail to compile (I expect?)
anonymoushn•2h ago
dwattttt•2h ago
That sounds as bad as relying on undefined behaviour in C.
Laremere•2h ago
anonymoushn•2h ago
dwattttt•1h ago
Which is fine for small inputs and uses, but it's not something that would scale well.
9029•1h ago
There are similarities here to C++ if constexpr and static_assert, if those are familiar to you.