The slides don't really add much detail. They're just a light introduction to the sort of region-based memory management that was already being used by Cyclone, well before the Rust project was even a thing.
> already being used by Cyclone, well before the Rust project was even a thing.
Let’s be a little more accurate here. Rust is an actively developed language, Cyclone was a research project that I don’t believe has received an update since 2006.
Rust also is explicit that it borrowed its lifetime concept from Cyclone. Rust is in use and gaining popularity in a way that Cyclone didn’t.
This is a bit like the debate between Apple and Xerox in terms of the beginnings of the desktop/mouse/GUI environment. Apple was the first to make it popular, xerox park invented it. Rust has a similar relationship with Cyclone.
It's clear to most that rust invented few, but that nobody cared because we just wanted these features to reach the mainstream, which rust embodies. Maybe the rust trend train gives people a false impression of innovative messiah... I don't know.
Process boundaries help you when you start jumping through a ROP chain that spawns a shell because your process doesn't have access to things that it shouldn't, even when compromised. Calling Heartbleed an example of a process "changing its behavior" doesn't really make sense in the context of exploits that can cause arbitrary code execution.
I always knew Rust was picking up from Cyclone, but I was, stupid enough to assume Cyclone was half baked, half finish programming languages with the Ownership idea.
It wasn't until today I did a search on it, and it reached 1.0!
Why wasn't Cyclone being used or continue to be developed?
