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0 pointsExpurple9mo ago0 comments

As the other commenter responded there, your example isn't about editions at all. It's about mixing ABIs and mixing multiple versions of the language runtime. Those are entirely separate issues.

You're correct that the possible changes in editions are very limited. But editions don't hinder interoperability in any way. They are designed not to. Today, there are no interoperability problems caused by editions specifically.

> compromises will be required, specially regarding possible incompatible semantic differences across editions.

That's just an assumption in your head. 4 editions later, it still hasn't manifested in any way.

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pjmlp9mo ago

4 editions later, Rust is yet to be used at the scale of C and C++ across the industry, my point on the comment is how editions will look like after 50 years of Rust history.

ABIs and multiple versions of the language runtime, are part of what defines a language ecosystem, hence why editions don't really cover as much as people think they do.

ExpurpleOP9mo ago

Editions will look like band-aids that don't fully solve the cruft accumulated over the 50 years. That's not hard to predict. It's still a very useful mechanism that slows down the accumulation of said cruft. I'm yet to see a language that has a better stability/evolution story

pjmlp9mo ago

In any case, while I as language geek have these kind of discussions, given current progress in AI systems, my point of view is that we will get the next evolution in programming systems, thus it won't matter much if it is C, C++, Rust, C#, Java, Go or whatever.

We (as in the industry) will eventually get reliable ways to generate applications directly to machine code, just as optimizing compilers took a couple of decades to beat hand written Assembly, and generate reliable optimized code.

So editions, regardless of what they offer, might not be as relevant in such a timeframe from a couple of decades ahead.

ExpurpleOP9mo ago

The machine code will always be generated from "something". A one-line informal prompt isn't enough. There will always be people who write specs. Even the current languages are already far from "machine code" and could be considered "specs", albeit low-level

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pjmlp9mo ago

4 editions later, Rust is yet to be used at the scale of C and C++ across the industry, my point on the comment is how editions will look like after 50 years of Rust history.

ABIs and multiple versions of the language runtime, are part of what defines a language ecosystem, hence why editions don't really cover as much as people think they do.

ExpurpleOP9mo ago

pjmlp9mo ago

So editions, regardless of what they offer, might not be as relevant in such a timeframe from a couple of decades ahead.

ExpurpleOP9mo ago

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