zohnannor

// This is a technique to emulate lifetime GATs (generic associated types) on stable rust starting
// with rustc 1.33.
//
// I haven't seen this exact technique before, but I would be surprised if no one else came up with
// it. I think this avoids most downsides of other lifetime GAT workarounds I've seen.
//
// In particular, neither implementing nor using traits with emulated lifetime GATs requires adding
// any helper items. Only defining the trait requires a single helper trait (+ a single helper impl
// for the 2nd variant) per GAT. This also makes the technique viable without any boilerplate
// reducing macros.

zohnannor

Proving that 1 + 1 = 2 in Rust

The fact that 1 + 1 is equal to 2 is one of those things that is so obvious it may be hard to justify why. Fortunately mathematicians have devised a way of formalizing arithmetic and subsequently proving that 1 + 1 = 2. Natural numbers are based on the Peano axioms. They are a set of simple rules that define (along with a formal system) what natural numbers are. So in order to prove 1 + 1 = 2 in Rust we first need a formal system capable of handling logic. The formal system that we'll be using is not some random crate, but Rust's type system itself! We will not have any runtime code, instead the type checker will do all the work for us.

Implementing the Peano axioms

First let's go trough the Peano axioms. The first axiom is that "Zero is a natural number". Basically what it says is that zero exists. In order to express that in the type system, we just write: