关于 Rust 中 coreutils 的笔记 · Alex Gaynor

发布于 3 月 22 日

Canonical's Announcement: Canonical announced switching Ubuntu's coreutils from GNU coreutils to a Rust implementation. This has divided opinions.
- Memory Safety: Rust programs are generally more memory safe than those in C and C++, having fewer vulnerabilities. But coreutils doesn't have a significant history of security vulnerabilities due to memory unsafety.
- Performance: Rust benefits from precise memory control and lack of GC compared to Python, Ruby, Java, or Go. But compared to C, the performance advantages are less clear. It may be easier to write high-performing code in Rust for some tasks, but it's unclear if Rust coreutils is actually faster than GNU coreutils.
The Question: The question is not whether to rewrite coreutils but which implementation to use given that both exist. There are some marginal advantages to using Rust, but it's not a strong case.
Benefits to Ubuntu: Enabling the switch to a Rust implementation of coreutils will uncover and resolve blockers to using Rust in the distribution. This was the experience with pyca/cryptography, where initial work set the stage for future benefits. If Canonical's adoption of Rust coreutils can do the same, it will be valuable.

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