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[YCoCg]

Microsoft to Replace All C/C++ Code With Rust by 2030

Microsoft is taking an impressive step in modernizing its biggest codebases and will eliminate all C/C++ code by the end of the decade.

www.thurrott.com

"My goal is to eliminate every line of C and C++ from Microsoft by 2030," Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Galen Hunt writes in a post on LinkedIn. "Our strategy is to combine AI and Algorithms to rewrite Microsoft's largest codebases. Our North Star is '1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code.' To accomplish this previously unimaginable task, we've built a powerful code processing infrastructure. Our algorithmic infrastructure creates a scalable graph over source code at scale. Our AI processing infrastructure then enables us to apply AI agents, guided by algorithms, to make code modifications at scale. The core of this infrastructure is already operating at scale on problems such as code understanding."


*Internal screaming*

 

[Ulysses 31]

 

[Ar¢tos]

Let me grab a huge bucket of popcorn...

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

 

[Hudo]

Luckily for them, most of their codebase seems to be JavaScript anyway.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Ohhhhhhhh boyyyyyyyyy.

Suddenly, Linus's careful and consensus based approach makes more sense than ever. Not that I'm opposed to AI writing code, but kernel code is some seriously sensitive stuff.

I will always find it funny that Microsoft's Cloud runs on Linux. They know it's better, but everyone else gets slop.

 

[IFireflyl]

 

[Insane Metal]

LOL, was going to post exactly that.

 

[Dragon_Rocks]

 

[rm082e]

Do it and deploy it. I want to see the results in action. Let's go.

 

[sono]

Galen Hunt won't be long

In his role

 

[GriffinCorp]

The 2030's will finally be better than 2020's... Microsoft hold my beer moment.

 

[th4tguy]

As someone who is just in the final stages of migrating over a few thousand lines of code to just a newer standard, not even a different language, I'm laughing my ass off. Good luck MS. We also tried to speed up the process with Ai.
We spent just as long fixing all the issues as we would have simply migrating the code ourselves. And we lost out of many optimizations that would have been put in while doing the updates and now have to plan more time for that next year.

 

[Mr Moose]

"Our strategy is to combine AI and Algorithms to rewrite Microsoft's largest codebases." It'll be a broken mess, more than it already is.

 

[Viruz]

'1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code.'

Sure, why not?

 

[justiceiro]

Amazon went down with the half of the web for a day because they replaced one service to use rust. Now Microsoft want to test the entire codebase.

Man, IT professionals will have jobs for decades.

 

[Topher]

 

[phant0m]

Should this be in off-topic? Obviously would apply to their gaming products but isn't specific to them

 

[IFireflyl]

Should this be in off-topic? Obviously would apply to their gaming products but isn't specific to them

sHoUlD tHiS bE iN oFf-ToPiC?

Listen: we're here to shit on Microsoft. Are you in, or are you out?

 

[Topher]

sHoUlD tHiS bE iN oFf-ToPiC?

Listen: we're here to shit on Microsoft. Are you in, or are you out?

 

[phant0m]

sHoUlD tHiS bE iN oFf-ToPiC?

Listen: we're here to shit on Microsoft. Are you in, or are you out?

 

[Magic-DEI-Hire]

 

[RoboFu]

Yes thats what I always wanted ... for system level language to code like javascript.

So the biggest dumb thing about RUST is to get the same level of performance as C++ you have to use unsafe code anyway. which is really the whole point of RUST besides the easy script like syntax.

 

[Negotiator101]

As someone who is just in the final stages of migrating over a few thousand lines of code to just a newer standard, not even a different language, I'm laughing my ass off. Good luck MS. We also tried to speed up the process with Ai.
We spent just as long fixing all the issues as we would have simply migrating the code ourselves. And we lost out of many optimizations that would have been put in while doing the updates and now have to plan more time for that next year.

It's Microsoft the biggest software company in the world, I think they've got more talented people working for them than whomever you work for, some people are just better at their jobs than others, no offence

 

[Trekinspace88]

This is sure a quick way to get people to switch to Linux (including me).

 

[RoboFu]

It's Microsoft the biggest software company in the world, I think they've got more talented people working for them than whomever you work for, some people are just better at their jobs than others, no offence

LOL wut da hell?

 

[DreamcastSkies]

What does this mean?

 

[ZehDon]

The sheer amount of damage this is primed to do cannot be overstated. Microsoft is hell bent on serving up the worst possible products and services if it means it can fire just one more engineer, just one more coder.

 

[KeplerL2]

 

[RaZoR No1]

What does this mean?

bazzite

 

[StereoVsn]

Amazon went down with the half of the web for a day because they replaced one service to use rust. Now Microsoft want to test the entire codebase.

Man, IT professionals will have jobs for decades.

You know, I was going to send my management this MS insanity as part of justification to getting off MS' crazy train. But you make a good point, might as well stick with this shit, job security for years!

 

[Zacfoldor]

Imagine if you learned to code after losing your last job and saw this.

Think of all the people we were teaching to code because we were sure that would be a futureproof job.

That is how little we know about anything.

In 3 years we might all be werecats and we would not have changed much more than we already do.

We are not serious people.

 

[StereoVsn]

It's Microsoft the biggest software company in the world, I think they've got more talented people working for them than whomever you work for, some people are just better at their jobs than others, no offence

 

[Zacfoldor]

It's Microsoft the biggest software company in the world, I think they've got more talented people working for them than whomever you work for, some people are just better at their jobs than others, no offence

 

[winjer]

No wonder Microsoft software keeps getting worse and slower and with more bugs.

 

[StereoVsn]

No wonder Microsoft software keeps getting worse and slower and with more bugs.

I have experienced more M365 and Azure bugs this year than 2-3 years prior. it's beyond ridiculous.

 

[winjer]

I have experienced more M365 and Azure bugs this year than 2-3 years prior. it's beyond ridiculous.

You have no idea how much I hate having to work with Teams, Onedrive and Office 365....

 

[Soodanim]

Linux looking more and more like a safe haven with how Microsoft are looking to make something they say has lots of broken features transform largely by automatic systems because it's a dream of theirs.

The more I use their software at work the less fond of it I am. Things that used to work fine get worse little by little.

This isn't me being in the "Linux is the future" camp, just observations.

 

[StereoVsn]

You have no idea how much I hate having to work with Teams, Onedrive and Office 365....

 

[Loomy]

I will take "things that will never happen" for $500, Alex

 

[ReyBrujo]

Our software code base was Visual Basic 6 (1.2 million lines of code), VBNET and C# (like 2.5m more). We got a software from a company called Great Migrations which basically converts the VB6 code into C# following certain rules and patterns which we spent about 3 months tweaking until we got all 200 projects converted and compiling (not running, just compiling), then we spent another 3 months until we have adjusted enough code to get the login screen up again, and around 8 months until we were able to release a migrated version. It took us 10 engineers, 6 testers and 14 months starting from Covid lockdown. The thought of having one single engineer tackle a million lines of code in one month boggles my mind.

It's Microsoft the biggest software company in the world, I think they've got more talented people working for them than whomever you work for, some people are just better at their jobs than others, no offence

That's not exactly how it works, they might have 100k programmers but not everyone will modify the kernel routines, they are far fewer, and many probably don't even know how to write a line of Rust or aren't proficient at it. However you are not completely off: Microsoft can have access to much better models than the publicly available ones, tweaked to work with Microsoft code base having the context of the whole source tree fully loaded at all times, that's something other companies cannot afford to do.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

They can't eve move the task bar in 2D space lol

 

[kruis]

 

[Topher]

I have experienced more M365 and Azure bugs this year than 2-3 years prior. it's beyond ridiculous.

You have no idea how much I hate having to work with Teams, Onedrive and Office 365....

Agree. I've worked primarily in MS technologies for 25+ years and they have gotten progressively worse across the board.

This rush to rewrite shit for the sake of rewriting it in a new language is just to brag about the AI capabilities. Whether or not this improves the quality of the products overall is really just beside the point.

 

[intbal]

Why not COBOL, you cowards?

 

[LordCBH]

Do NOT update to whatever version of windows will have this clanker made code.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Oh the up side, my daily user computer is a MacBook

On the down side, Linux needs to get their shit together on gaming because PC gaming is gonna be fucked in the 2030's

 

[Hypereides]

I admire the initiative, since Rust is supposedly memory-safe, but its probably not going to be a smooth sail in any way. Especially, with shoving the workload onto AI to prove their commitment.

 

[ReBurn]

I think it's more realistic that there will be no Galen Hunt left in Microsoft by 2030.

Why not COBOL, you cowards?

They won't do it since COBOL is actually good.

 

[bender]

Agree. I've worked primarily in MS technologies for 25+ years and they have gotten progressively worse across the board.

This rush to rewrite shit for the sake of rewriting it in a new language is just to brag about the AI capabilities. Whether or not this improves the quality of the products overall is really just beside the point.

Maybe the AI will figure out that NT4.0 was peak Windows and bring it back.