Rewrite it in Rust by ridiculousfish · Pull Request #9512 · fish-shell/fish-shell.
Nobody really likes C++ or CMake, and there’s no clear path f…
Read in full here:
fish-shell:master ← ridiculousfish:riir
opened 06:24PM - 28 Jan 23 UTC
(Editor's note - please read https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/9512#… issuecomment-1410820102 and https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/9512#issuecomment-1409719921 before commenting if you are new to fish or not familiar with the context - @zanchey)
([Progress report November 2023](https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/discussions/10123))
(Sorry for the [meme](https://transitiontech.ca/random/RIIR); also [this is obligatory](https://github.com/ansuz/RIIR).)
I think we should transition to Rust and aim to have it done by the next major release:
- Nobody really likes C++ or CMake, and there's no clear path for getting off old toolchains. Every year the pain will get worse.
- C++ is becoming a legacy language and finding contributors in the future will become difficult, while Rust has an active and growing community.
- Rust is what we need to turn on concurrent function execution.
- Being written in Rust will help fish continue to be perceived as modern and relevant.
This should be thought of as a "port" instead of a "rewrite" because we would not start from scratch; instead we would translate C++ to Rust, incrementally, module by module, in the span of one release. We'll use an FFI so the Rust and C++ bits can talk to each other until C++ is gone, and tests and CI keep passing at every commit.
To prove it can work, in this PR I've ported FLOG, topic monitor, wgetopt, builtin_wait, and some others to Rust. The Rust bits live in a crate that lives inside the C++ and links with it. You can just build it the usual way:
1. [Install Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install) 1.67 or later
2. cmake as usual, and it should work, by way of [corrosion](https://github.com/corrosion-rs/corrosion)
It works in [GH Actions CI](https://github.com/ridiculousfish/fish-shell/actions/runs/4027937935) too.
The [Plan](https://github.com/ridiculousfish/fish-shell/blob/riir/doc_internal/fish-riir-plan.md) has a high level description, and the [Development Guide](https://github.com/ridiculousfish/fish-shell/blob/riir/doc_internal/rust-devel.md) has more technical details on how to proceed. Please consider both to be part of this PR.
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