> It's well established that writing safe and sound C code is an impossible feat
You make it sound like this is somehow particular to C.
I hold the opinion that when you're using such an open definition of "sound and safe" (e.g. code will never do anything that could reasonably called a "bug" from a user's perspective) it is impossible to write "safe and sound" code in any programming language.
But that is not really a problem with the language, but with the definition of the term "sound and safe".
If you use a more constrained definition of "sound and safe"; one that would actually allow you to write "correct" code in a language, then C code can just be as sound and safe as rust code or Coq. It really just depends on your definitions.
In a way I agree with what I believe the grandparent tried to say; one thing that consistently rubs me about the Rust community is that they oftem seem to be using a very constrained definition of "safe" when advertising that rust is a "safe language", but a very open definition of safe when proclaiming that more or less every other systems language is "unsafe". That may be true using their definition of safe, but is a bit of dirty PR trick.
> The community tends to have smarter on average people in it. Simply because all the less smart people are put off. Sounds elitist? Maybe.
Have you thought about the possibility that it's actually a community of people who first and foremost _consider_ themselves as being smarter than the rest? Maybe this is what's really off-putting to equally smart, but more humble developers?
Not with elm. Its a nice intersection of smart and down-to-earth / helpful types. And "smart" here means "conscientious, passionate developer smart" not "born with 200 IQ". I don't get any impression that elmers "_consider_ themselves as being smarter than the rest" from talking on the reddit etc. Haskellers though, I think it's a different story, but YMMV.
You make it sound like this is somehow particular to C.
I hold the opinion that when you're using such an open definition of "sound and safe" (e.g. code will never do anything that could reasonably called a "bug" from a user's perspective) it is impossible to write "safe and sound" code in any programming language.
But that is not really a problem with the language, but with the definition of the term "sound and safe".
If you use a more constrained definition of "sound and safe"; one that would actually allow you to write "correct" code in a language, then C code can just be as sound and safe as rust code or Coq. It really just depends on your definitions.
In a way I agree with what I believe the grandparent tried to say; one thing that consistently rubs me about the Rust community is that they oftem seem to be using a very constrained definition of "safe" when advertising that rust is a "safe language", but a very open definition of safe when proclaiming that more or less every other systems language is "unsafe". That may be true using their definition of safe, but is a bit of dirty PR trick.