undefined | Better HN

0 pointskbenson5y ago0 comments

Yeah, in the end, they're taking a somewhat sane approach, it's just rather odd that they identify this as item number 1 that needs addressing.

I'm not sure whether it's actually better to abstract all the unsafe away, or force it to shown where it's used. In one respect, they may be right, it might lesson the impact of unsafe and it gets used more freely. On the other, it also means that it's not necessarily immediately obvious when you're crossing boundaries, since the obvious bits and intentionally hidden away.

Though I'll freely admit my initial responses were a bit hyperbolic and... testy. :)

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

ComputerGuru5y ago

I disagree, you can automatically expose any unsafe function with a wrapper _safe function that does nothing more than call the former (possibly also wrapping fundamentally unsafe types in arguments and return values) which makes it appear safe but that doesn’t make it sane.

There would need to be domain understanding baked into each wrapper and some contract about what is happening on the other side of the ffi wall for it to qualify as both safe and sane, and I’m not sure their approach meets that high burden.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse