Re: GSoC'17 - Introduction: Rustify GJS

["Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)" <zeeshanak gnome org>]

Hi Luke,

Sounds really exciting! May I ask who is your mentor for this project?

On 7 May 2017 at 23:31, Luke Jones <luke nukem jones gmail com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am Luke Jones, a student of software engineering in New Zealand.
>
> The project proposal of mine that was accepted is to research and
> implement the Rust language in to GJS to help reduce or eliminate
> memory leaks and increase memory safety.
>
> GJS is something that some rather important parts of the GNOME
> ecosystem rely on (eg, shell), and it is imperative that it be solid,
> stable, fast - as we all know, while C and C++ are wonderful languages
> in their own right, they also allow many flaws to sneak past simply by
> virtue of giving the programmer incredible unchecked power. This has
> in the past introduced such things as memory leaks (not freeing after
> use), use after free, array out of bounds and so on.
>
> And then we have the cool new kid on the block; Rust.
>
> Where the power of Rust comes in to play is via its compiler - it
> enforces a set of rules regarding the ownership of data;
> * data is immutable by default
> * data may have any number of references (pointers) to it for as long
> as the data is within scope of those references, or;
> * data may only have one mutable reference
> * if data is /moved/ it is no-longer able to be referenced by a
> previous reference, and the compiler checks this.
> * data /must/ have a value - null does not exist
>
> The above means that such things as use-after-free are almost
> impossible, as the compiler checks that the data is within scope and
> throws an error if not. You can see a small demo here
> https://is.gd/sT26Fj
>
> So.
> The aim of my project is to investigate a number of things;
> * interoperation of C/C++ and Rust - Rust has an FFI
> * the replacement of small sections of C/C++ with Rust
> * the impact this has on such things as performance, memory safety, memory use
>
> The ultimate goal after this is to open the way for using Rust within
> GJS for mission critical sections - dependant on results of course -
> and hopefully inspire others to start their own investigations in to
> use of Rust within their projects.
>
> Project: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/projects/#6418800843948032
>
> I'm looking forward to seeing the benefits of this, and other
> projects. Exciting times.
>
> Luke
> Oh, and yes there was the recent GNOME+Rust Hackfest, and also librsvg
> slowly converting to Rust - I hope to be able to use this knowledge
> base, as well as contribute to it.
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-- 
Regards,

Zeeshan Ali