Improving C/C++ open source software discoverability by utilizing rust and Node.js ecosystems

Abstract

Discovering Open Source Software (OSS) components efficiently is not always an easy task. Node.js is a popular JavaScript runtime environment, whereas Rust is widely used for system programming, and both can be utilized for OSS discovery purposes. In this work, we examine whether Rust and Node.js can be used, along with their respective tooling and package repositories, in order to achieve improved discoverability of existing OSS implemented in C/C++. The paper describes how the capabilities of Rust in C/C++ interoperability can be combined with novel compilation techniques of low-level code to asm.js and WebAssembly, in order to harness JavaScript’s popularity as the medium to publicize hard to discover C/C++ OSS. A proposed incremental methodology is presented and the main, as well as the collateral, effects of enforcing the proposed methodology in a proof-of-concept situation are examined. Our findings indicate potential increase in discoverability, code quality, portability, along with viable performance degradation of portable binaries, demonstrating 8.7 times slower execution compared to machine code, in a worst-case scenario.