It's just moving the goalposts. "If it compiles it works" to "it eliminates all memory bugs" to "well, it's safer than c...".

If Rust doesn't live up to its lofty promises, then it changes the cost-benefit analysis. You might give up almost anything to eliminate all bugs, a lot to eliminate all memory bugs, but what would you give up to eliminate some bugs?

I think it's pretty telling that there are people in this thread trying to pre-empt the expected criticism in this thread. Might be worth thinking why there might be criticism, and why it wouldn't be the case if it was a different language.

> All bugs is typically a strawman typically only used by detractors. The correct claim is: safe Rust eliminates certain classes of bugs. I'd wager the design of std eliminates more (e.g. the different string types), but that doesn't really apply to the kernel.

Which is either 1) not true as evidenced by this bug or 2) a tautology whereby Rust eliminates all bugs that it eliminates.

> Anybody who thought the simple action of rewriting things in Rust would eliminate all bugs was hopelessly naive.

Classic Motte and Bailey. Rust is often said "if it compiles it runs". When that is obviously not the case, Rust evangelicals claim nobody actually means that and that Rust just eliminates memory bugs. And when that isn't even true, they try to mischaracterize it as "all bugs" when, no, people are expecting it to eliminate all memory bugs because that's what Rust people claim.

If rust is so inflexible that it requires the use of unsafe to solve problems, that's still rust's fault. You have to consider both safe rust behaviour as well as necessary unsafe code.