On: The Path to Rust

[lmm]

> I bet a fair number of those tried and tested libraries expose a C interface.

Some of them do, or have C equivalents, but many of them don't. Once you get into "there's only one library that does it and it's one guy's graduate thesis" territory, often the only option is on the JVM.

[loup-vaillant → lmm]

> "there's only one library that does it and it's one guy's graduate thesis"

Those libraries aren't tried and tested. They can be reimplemented. And in some contexts, they shouldn't be trusted as a black box.

[jleahy → lmm]

The last time I was in that situation, the only option was lisp. I'm still supporting a lisp environment for that one piece of code.