• CandleTiger@programming.dev
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    17 hours ago

    But if you are doing something advanced, down at the hardware level

    This part is wrong. Otherwise yes correct.

    The “unsafe” code in rust is allowed to access memory locations in ways that skip the compiler’s check and guarantee that that memory location has valid data. They programmer is on their own to ensure that.

    Which as you say is just the normal state of affairs for all C code.

    This is needed not because of hardware access but just because sometimes the proof that the access is safe is beyond what the compiler is able to represent.

    • sem@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      1 hour ago

      Thank you for the correction, I’ll edit my comment.

      sometimes the proof that the access is

      safe is bevond what the compiler is able to represent

      Could you say a few more words about this? In what situations do you have to write ‘unsafe-tagged’ code blocks? Could this be changed by improvements to the compiler? Or is it necessitated by the type of task being done by the code?