In Rust, it's considered a bug for any code which isn't using `unsafe` to encounter a memory error (e.g., to segfault). That bug might be in some underlying library (which is itself using `unsafe`), or more rarely in the compiler, but it's a bug and not how Rust is supposed to work.
Does Haskell have any similar line? What is the property that code must have in order for it to be a bug to segfault? Must not call `unsafePerformIO`? Must not call `unsafeCoerce`? (Must not call any function with the `unsafe` prefix?)
In other words, is the segfault here to be considered a bug in the language -- or is unwrapping IO one of the things that, if you do it, you're own your own and may segfault? (Is part of the point of the article is that it is currently considered safe but should not be? Is that a bug in the language or in peoples' expectations?)
Or is a clear line like this not a notion that Haskell has? It's been a long time since I've done any Haskell, though I don't recall any clear guideline like this!
> is unwrapping IO one of the things that, if you do it, you're own your own
To be able to do it in the first place, I think you need to import libraries that expose compiler internals, so I would say it belongs in the "you're on your own" category, yes.
Also if you try to Google how to do it, every hit says "don't do it".
To a certain extent, the line in Haskell is: don't use unsafePerformIO and unsafeCoerce. The tricky bit is that this line is not enforced by syntax or by the type system (unlike Rust, where you have a syntactic label `unsafe`). One generally puts "unsafe" before function names that have preconditions that are not expressed in their type, but this practice is not quite always adhered to -- though the worst offenders are reliably marked "unsafe".
>In Rust, it's considered a bug for any code which isn't using `unsafe` to encounter a memory error (e.g., to segfault)
Teeechnically, it's not true. Unfortunately, you can trigger a memory error in safe code by overflowing stack by allocating big objects on stack, executing poorly written recursive code, or spawning a thread with small stack. In older Rust versions you literally got segfault in such cases.
Isn't stack overflow made safe via guard pages and probes (on sufficiently high-tier target platforms)? That is you should get a guaranteed error, even if that is a segfault, and not memory corruption.
Does Haskell have any similar line? What is the property that code must have in order for it to be a bug to segfault? Must not call `unsafePerformIO`? Must not call `unsafeCoerce`? (Must not call any function with the `unsafe` prefix?)
In other words, is the segfault here to be considered a bug in the language -- or is unwrapping IO one of the things that, if you do it, you're own your own and may segfault? (Is part of the point of the article is that it is currently considered safe but should not be? Is that a bug in the language or in peoples' expectations?)
Or is a clear line like this not a notion that Haskell has? It's been a long time since I've done any Haskell, though I don't recall any clear guideline like this!