HackerTube.dev

RustConf 2017 - Closing Keynote: Safe Systems Software and the Future of Computing by Joe Duffy

Confreaks · 2.5K views · 2017-09-01 · 42:45

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Joe Duffy's RustConf 2017 closing keynote on his experience at Microsoft building Midori, an operating system written in a Rust-like safe systems language. He covers the technical and cultural challenges of applying those lessons to Windows.

On Hacker News

HN repeatedly cites it for Midori lessons: compatibility matters for adoption, and the Windows team stayed sceptical even with Midori running real workloads.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2017–2025

Topics

Search by tags

What people said

shepmaster · 2020-01 · Recommendation

See also "Safe Systems Software and the Future of Computing" by Joe Duffy, the closing keynote at RustConf 2017: [VIDEO] Midori and Rust have several striking similarities, and Microsoft's recent uptick in interest in Rust (and Rust-like languages) bodes well for improved software quality.

Read the original HN comment ↗
chubot · 2017-09 · Recommendation

Related: "Safe Systems Software and the Future of Computing by Joe Duffy" at RustConf 2017. [VIDEO] I summarized this excellent talk here [1], but one of the main points is that compatibility with existing systems is important for adoption. (They learned that the hard way -- by having their entire project cancelled and almost everything thrown out.) He advocates unit-by-unit rewrites rather than big-bang rewrites, just like Kell does in this conference article. And compatibility with C in Windows should be easier than it is in the Unix world, because the whole OS is architected around a binary protocol AFAIK -- COM. My sense is that Rust may not have thought enough about compatibility early in its life. Only later when they ran into adoption problems did they start talking more about compatibility. Also, it seems Rust competes more with C++ than C, and there seems to be very little attempt to be compatible with C++ (although perhaps that problem is intractable.) Personally I don't think Rust will be a successful C replacement. It will have some adoption, but the Linux kernel will still be running on bajillions of devices 10 years from now, written in C. And in 20 years, something else will come along to replace either C or Linux, but that thing won't involve Rust. [1] [LINK]

Read the original HN comment ↗
pjmlp · 2025-11 · Reference

Mostly because of internal politics, it was used in production for Bing. > While never reaching commercial release, at one time Midori powered all of Microsoft’s natural language search service for the West Coast and Asia. From [LINK] Enjoy this recording of an internal presentation, while it is still available on YouTube, [LINK] Joe Duffy also did a few presentations, on one of them (too lazy to search for the exact moment), he mentions that even with Midori running in front of them, the Windows team was very sceptical of it, "RustConf 2017 - Closing Keynote: Safe Systems Software and the Future of Computing by Joe Duffy" [VIDEO] "Safe Systems Programming in C# and .NET" [LINK]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Confreaks, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources