Re: “DARPA suggests turning old C code automatically into Rust – using AI, of course”

On Mon, 8/5/2024 5:02 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

“DARPA suggests turning old C code automatically into Rust – using AI, of course”
   https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/03/darpa_c_to_rust/
 
“To accelerate the transition to memory safe programming languages, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is driving the development of TRACTOR, a programmatic code conversion vehicle.”
 
“The term stands for TRanslating All C TO Rust. It's a DARPA project that aims to develop machine-learning tools that can automate the conversion of legacy C code into Rust.”
 
I have never used a code translator that converted 100% of the code properly.
 
Lynn
 

This slide, captures what a participant feels about the idea.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/immunant/c2rust/master/docs/c2rust-overview.png

    ( https://github.com/immunant/c2rust )

That's why the slide consists of a "printf() to println:() translator".

Now, think of all the reasons they believe that to be the case.

The sum total of the quality of the input, determines the output.
An AI will *never* ask you for more information. It runs with what
it has. It does not care whether the result is relevant or not.
And just try and micro-manage one, and see what happens.

   Paul