RE: [DISCUSS] Introducing Rust into the Git project

[<rsbecker@nexbridge.com>]

On Thursday, January 11, 2024 12:06 AM, Elijah Newren wrote:
>On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 6:57 PM <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 9:21 PM, Elijah Newren wrote:
>> >On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 5:44 PM <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 7:59 PM, Elijah Newren wrote:
>> >[...]
>> >> >Would you be okay with the following alternative: requiring that
>> >> >all Rust code be optional for now?
>> >> >
>> >> >(In other words, allow you to build with USE_RUST=0, or something
>> >> >like that.  And then we have both a Rust and a C implementation of
>> >> >anything that is required for backward compatibility, while any
>> >> >new Rust-only stuff would not be included in your build.)
>> >>
>> >> To address the immediate above, I assume this means that platform
>> >> maintainers will be responsible for developing non-portable
>> >> implementations that duplicate Rust functionality
>> >
>> >This doesn't at all sound like what I thought I said.  The whole
>> >proposal was so that folks like NonStop could continue using Git with
>> >no more work than setting
>> >USE_RUST=0 at build time.
>> >
>> >Why do you feel you'd need to duplicate any functionality?
>>
>> I think I misunderstood. What I took from this is that all new functionality would
>be in Rust, which would require a custom implementation in C for platforms that did
>not have Rust available - if that is even practical. Did I get that wrong?
>
>I think you somehow missed the word optional?
>
>I did say that new functionality should be allowed to be Rust only (unlike existing
>functionality), but I'm not sure how you leaped to assuming that all new
>functionality would be in Rust.  Further, I also don't understand why you jump to
>assuming that all new functionality needs to be supported on all platforms.  The
>point of the word "optional" in my proposal is that it is not required.  So, say, if git-
>replay is in Rust, well you've never had git-replay before in any release, so you
>haven't lost any functionality by it being implemented in Rust.  And existing things
>(merge, cherry-pick, rebase, etc.) continue working with C-only code.  But you may
>have one less optional addition.
>
>At least that was _my_ proposal -- that Rust be optional for now.  It does differ from
>what I think Taylor was originally proposing, but that's why I brought it up as an
>alternative proposal.

Thank you for the clarification.