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Discusses Filian, the Fil-C toolchain, and building Fil-C binaries on Debian, marking progress toward memory-safe C adoption in mainstream Linux distributions.
The author argues for a Rust FFI that speaks the Fil-C ABI, enabling safe interop with recompiled C/C++ libraries, and calls for cross-ecosystem collaboration among Rust, Fil-C, Zig, and Nix/filnix communities.
The article discusses the recent proposal for memory safety in Zig via Fil-C, compares Fil-C's definition of memory safety with Rust's, and argues that memory safety is a spectrum with practical definitions, using a concrete example where Fil-C is still unsafe.
The article critiques memory safety absolutism in programming language debates, arguing that new approaches like Fil-C have trade-offs and that dismissing Rust as unsafe ignores practical benefits.
Isaac Van Doren reflects on the unexpected success of his 'Software Should Work' conference in Columbia, Missouri, noting the highly engaged audience, positive energy, and a direct impact on Zig's development with Andrew Kelley opening an issue for Fil-C inspired compilation mode.
Describes Fil-C's InvisiCaps capability model for ensuring memory safety in C and C++ by tracking pointer permissions, while aiming for fanatical compatibility and reasonable performance.
Fil-C introduces memory-safe implementation of setjmp/longjmp and ucontext APIs, preventing dangling stack corruption and panicking on misuse.
Fil-C introduces memory-safe inline assembly, ensuring that programmer errors result in panics or traps rather than miscompilation.