• 6 Posts
  • 182 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Reading between the lines, the documentation has the key:

    Generic instances … correspond to Semigroup and Monoid instances defined by pointwise lifting.

    In more words: each generic type can be broken up into a tuple-like row of components, and the generic type admits a monoid/semigroup whenever every component in the row admits a monoid/semigroup. In your handwritten Semigroup instance, the given code is agnostic as to the types of variables and functions; all that matters is that they already have Semigroup instances of their own.

    Let me answer the other question: where’s the monoid in the generated Rep? Well, there isn’t one! The Rep merely has a struct-like product of component types. If a monoid exists for each component, then a monoid for the entire struct exists (and is built from the obvious pointwise lifting!) but otherwise there isn’t a monoid derived from the struct itself. This should be a notable contrast from generic instances for e.g. Functor, where every Rep has exactly zero or one Functor due to the algebra of the semiring of types (there is an underlying algebraic equation with at most one possible solution.)


  • Well, here is a very funny one-off commit, but my biggest effort was probably substantial parts of a couple AMD/ATI GPU drivers, well-summarized here. As usual, that was a team effort, with particular credit to Deucher (AMD), Glisse (radeon maintainer), and Airlie (DRM/DRI maintainer). So, put up or shut up. Or, to paraphrase the sentiment that you seem to not grok: talk is cheap; show us your code.

    Let me make it clear. I call out brigading because it is useless noise that distorts and obfuscates the kernel development process. I don’t care that you’re salty that I’m pointing out that your “absolute crickets” comment is not only incorrect, but empty in the sense that your lack of perception is not a substitute for the actual process of kernel development. Additionally, in this case, it seems like you’re still focused on personalities rather than the underlying computer science; I expect “absolute crickets” when asking you about the topic of memory safety.







  • CorbintoLinuxMixing Rust and C in Linux likened to cancer by maintainer
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    15 days ago

    Your argument is completely specious. Re-read that list. Assembly is a second language in the kernel already, and really it’s multiple languages, one per supported ISA. Perl and Python scripts are used to generate data tables; there are multiple build-time languages. eBPF is evaluated at runtime; the kernel contains bytecode loaders, JIT compilers, and capability management for it. The kernel has already paid the initial cost of setting up a chimeric build process which evaluates many different languages at many different stages.



  • Whose arguments are you apologizing for? Read the thread backwards. Your claims about C and kernel policy were wrong, therefore @[email protected]’s point about multiple languages was right, therefore your main defense of Hellwig acting in good faith is unevidenced. So, are you still so ready to insist that Hellwig is arguing in good faith? Would you say that this thread has adequately discussed the technical details and is ready to return to the overarching political point?

    I would recommend looking at English WP’s style guide on weasel words. Rather than matching evidence and countering claims, you’ve set up a nest of strongly-held opinions with words like “basically”, “personal experience”, “I believe”, “an opinion of course”, “it isn’t just me”, and refused to actually directly engage with the evidence scrutinized. Given that it takes maybe five minutes to find even just one piece of assembly that has no justification for not being written in C, I think that it’s fair to characterize your position as inconsistent with actual kernel-hacking practices at best.



  • CorbintoPythonPython 3.13.2 and 3.12.9 now available!
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    16 days ago

    Similarly, I hope that your technical leaders know that ActiveState has a fork of CPython 2.7 which is still receiving security patches, and also that PyPy for Python 2.7 is actively maintained and can improve the diversity and performance of your backend.




  • I am not a programmer. … I’m a random with a chimp avatar. … It’s just that [Hellwig] prioritises consistency (for the sake of maintainability)…

    Pick a side and stick to it. You seem very keen to endorse Hellwig’s arguments despite not understanding them, and also to emit words on the topic despite not having a qualified opinion. It sounds like you want me to not take you seriously (so that I won’t reply to you) and also take you seriously (so that you are counted as part of the programming public.)

    I’m docking you again, this time for listening comprehension. Quoting Gaynor:

    The common thread here is that for each of [six listed vulnerabilities exploited by nation-states against vulnerable minorities], the vulnerability that was executed … was only possible because of the victim’s software being written in a memory-unsafe language. Put another way, if the relevant portions of these projects were written in a safe language, these vulnerabilities wouldn’t have been possible.

    That was early in the talk, around 6:30. Later, around 19:40, he says:

    The Rust-for-Linux project is working to make it possible for people to write Linux kernel modules in Rust.

    So, if you had watched Gaynor’s presentation, you would understand that Rust-for-Linux is a significant and prominent part of a wider push by security professionals to improve the overall safety of common devices, like Android phones, that are in the pockets of millions of people already. And then you wouldn’t be talking about respectability politics while apologizing for reactionaries who oppose that safety.



  • Your position is entirely reasonable and an excellent example of how ignoring technical details leads to failures of technical leadership. C is one of several languages notable for extreme lack of memory safety. Its lack of safety has been repeatedly quantified; I like to recommend Gaynor 2021 for a high-level introduction. Rust was introduced primarily to replace C (and a relative, C++) and improve the overall security of computing systems.

    The “merits of the project Rust4Linux” are simple and obvious: as code is translated from C to Rust, its overall characteristics (readability, performance, low-level modeling of machine behavior) will remain, but overall memory safety will increase. Opposition to it is reactionary, not well-grounded in technical merits; most of Linux is not well-proven to be correct, only believed to be correct under typical operating conditions as estimated by several dozen experienced programmers, and any technical options for improving our confidence in its correctness should be considered.

    Also, finally, I have to dock you for reading comprehension. Martin was quite clear: calling Rust a “cancer” – a cute pun given Rust’s crab mascot, or a dehumanizing slur, who knows – was, to them, a violation of the Code. It is not difficult to read the Code and notice that, were it a slur, it would violate the prohibition on “insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks.”