They’re currently exploring using AI to mass translate software from C to Rust, which will be hilarious if it doesn’t cause Armageddon
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
88 points (100.0% liked)
technology
23313 readers
104 users here now
On the road to fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Spreading Linux propaganda since 2020
- Ways to run Microsoft/Adobe and more on Linux
- The Ultimate FOSS Guide For Android
- Great libre software on Windows
- Hey you, the lib still using Chrome. Read this post!
Rules:
- 1. Obviously abide by the sitewide code of conduct. Bigotry will be met with an immediate ban
- 2. This community is about technology. Offtopic is permitted as long as it is kept in the comment sections
- 3. Although this is not /c/libre, FOSS related posting is tolerated, and even welcome in the case of effort posts
- 4. We believe technology should be liberating. As such, avoid promoting proprietary and/or bourgeois technology
- 5. Explanatory posts to correct the potential mistakes a comrade made in a post of their own are allowed, as long as they remain respectful
- 6. No crypto (Bitcoin, NFT, etc.) speculation, unless it is purely informative and not too cringe
- 7. Absolutely no tech bro shit. If you have a good opinion of Silicon Valley billionaires please manifest yourself so we can ban you.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm actually in favor of this. It's a really good idea, and I hope the state uses it for all the important databases they're gonna use to put us in the camps.
Please dont be a hater. Comrade AI might just save lives here.
that seems like it wouldn't work very well except maybe for small programs. the kinds of bugs they're trying to catch and prevent here may need substantial changes to the program's design in order to prevent. Like the borrow checker literally does not exist in C and it is not a thing people thought about when writing asynchronous C code. Maybe the AI will take a shortcut and write a bunch of unsafe rust code, but in that case what's the point?
This won't work completely. Large language models usually fail thoroughly when writing Rust code as there's not as much training data.
LMAO!
"And where did that bring you? Back to me."
- COBOL
Must be a lot of rust devs in the streets if we’re getting a make work program for em…
Which do you think happened?
-
Honest appraisal of C++ security problems
-
They figured out some security hole in C++ programs that makes them even worse than we thought
-
Some contractor bribed them to say this so that they can get contracts porting stuff to Rust
-
Some contractor dug up new legitimate security holes in C++ programs so they can convince the FBI to say this so they can get contracts porting stuff to Rust
-
High ranking FBI officials are rust fanboys
I think contractor bribes, but I think that last two are fun.
All wrong! It's because Rust is WOKE!
Thank god President Trump will revert everything to C, none of this woke stuff, Make Software Spaghetti Again!
C is for liberals, real patriots use Assembly 
It's just the obvious thing. C and C++ don't have safeguards against dangerous programming mistakes. Programming languages exist that do. There are to this day still software vulnerabilities being caused by subtly incorrect code that C and C++ require being treated as legitimate.
Am I wrong or is this a strong point in favor of c/c++? I'd generally want to do whatever the opposite is of what the FBI would like me to do.
"critical software" here refers to weapons systems, spying systems, government surveillance systems, cyberwarfare software, etc.
Do you work on critical software
If I did, it wouldn't 😉
"critical software" here refers to weapons systems, spying systems, government surveillance systems, cyberwarfare software, etc.
Why would they announce it instead of just memoing to their ghoul coders?
their reasoning is that rust (and perhaps others) that can be used in place of c or c++ have stronger compile time memory and thread safety checking which are two major sources of bugs and exploit vectors. So it's not like they're infiltrating the language in this case the way they would with crypto.
Right but AI translating of all government code is good. This is what you want, especially if shit goes down. Dont tell your enemy to stop pouring the kool aid.
Nah, that kind of reasoning is like "nazis think people should get armed, so we shouldn't."
It's not really a strong point. C++ has its place for graphics programming and gamedev and C has its place for embedded, but Rust would be a better choice for something like a cryptography app to help revolutionaries communicate for example.
JAVA IT IS MWAHHAHHHAHHAHHAA
You joke, but modern Java is much less bad than it used to be, the JVM is very well optimized, and other JVM languages like Kotlin and Clojure are actually good.
Yeah, kotlin rules
Skill issue. Just write better code
This kind of makes me want to write code in C out of spite.
I really want Go but without a garbage collector is that too much to ask
i have not tried it myself but have you taken a look into zig? it looks alot like go but is lower level. i have heard good things about it and it looks nice. of course the ecosystem is quite limited since it's a quite new language
load more comments
(1 replies)
Is CERT code included? I think there is a group working on a secure version of C++ as well. I'm not convinced that shifting experienced programmers to mew less familiar syntax will improve software quality. Improving the language rather than changing to another might be a better approach.
I guess assembly also ought to be avoided since all of the power/flaws of C are extant in it as well.