-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 199K Nov 10 06:37 /usr/bin/grep
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4.2M Jan 19 09:31 /usr/bin/rg
My very unscientific measurement of the startup time of grep vs ripgrep is 10ms when the cache is cold (ie, never run before) and 3ms when the cache is hot (ie, was run seconds prior). For grep even in the cold case libc will already be in memory, of course. The point I'm trying to make is even the worst case, 10ms, is irrelevant to a human using the thing.
However, speaking as a Debian Developer, it makes a huge difference to maintaining the two systems that use the two programs. If a security bug is found in libc, all Debian has to do is make the fixed version of libc as a security update. If a bug is found in the rust stdlib create Debian has to track down every ripgrep like program that statically includes it, recompile it. There are current 21,000 packages that link to libc6 right in Debian right now. If it was statically linked, Debian would have to rebuilt and distribute _all_ of them. (As a side note, Debian has a lot hardware resources donated to it but if libc wasn't dynamlic I wonder if it could get security updates to a series of bugs in libc6 out in a timely fashion.)
I don't know rust well, but I thought it could dynamically link. The Debian rust packagers don't, for some reason. (As opposed 21,000 dependencies, libstd-rust has 1.) I guess there must be some kink in the rust tool chain that makes it easier not to. I imagine that would have to change if rust replaces C.
I am sympathetic to the point you make but to be accurate, one can consume and create C and C compatible dynamic libraries with rust. So, one is not “losing” something because what you (and me) want - dynamic linking and shared libraries with a stable and safe rust ABI - was not there to begin with.
Also to be pedantic, C doesn't spec anything about linkage. Shared objects and how linkers use them to compose programs is a system detail more than a language one.
