To accelerate the transition to memory safe programming languages, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is driving the development of TRACTOR, a programmatic code conversion vehicle.
One of the things that gives me pause with Rust is the amount of effort required to bootstrap it.
With C, a minimal (almost toy) C compiler can be used to compile a full-featured C compiler. That toy C compiler could, in theory, be written in another language like assembly.
Whereas with Rust you need a full fledged (with newest features) Rust compiler to compile the compiler....so its a dependency loop.
99% of people are downloading pre-compiled Rust compilers. My concern is related to security. How can anyone be sure that those compilers are not inserting backdoors or otherwise introducing hidden exploitable bugs?
Sure, but rustc can output LLVM Intermediate Representation and assembly code, allowing for inspection of the generated code. This transparency can help detect anomalies or malicious code.
rustccan output LLVM Intermediate Representation and assembly code, allowing for inspection of the generated code. This transparency can help detect anomalies or malicious code.