alt Hacker News> The end result is a memory-safe video decoder that runs 2.7x faster than the Rust port, with identical video output, bringing it closer to the optimized C++.
So ... Rust still can't beat the C++ implementation :-D
Sorry, didn't mean to ignite a langwar, but it's still interesting to see.
Replies
himata4113 • yesterday at 2:49 AM
Additional safety checks do mean less performance, it's the same thing as hardened allocators. Rust will panic if for some reason you attempt to read outside the bounds of a slice object (even when it should be impossible to be outside those bounds)
manbash • yesterday at 3:58 AM
If it's "rust still can't beat... performance-wise", then yeah I guess.
But there are other criteria. The move to rust might've also resolved numerous potential memory-safety bugs in the decoder.
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"Safe Rust" being closer to "optimized C++". And those "optimized C++" usually incldues assembly code, so it's a huge improvement.
Of course, Rust is not a magic, so just porting to Rust wouldn't make this performance improvement. It seems their AI overfitted code to Rust compiler to find safe Rust code that compiles to efficient assembly.