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Let's just keep writing operating systems and security-sensitive code in C. I'm sure this time we'll have even better development practices. This time we'll do

Let's just keep writing operating systems and security-sensitive code in C. I'm sure this time we'll have even better development practices. This time we'll do better code reviews. This time the static analysis tools will catch more problems. If we all close our eyes and wish really hard we can avoid inconveniencing a few programmers, save a few CPU cycles, and keep using C. After all, the performance is totally worth a few heartbleeds now and again ya?

LukeShu 11y ago
http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/heartbleed-in-rust http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/heartbleed-in-rust I tried writing my own commentary to go with the link, but I decided that it would just be a bad paraphrasing of tedunangst's writing.
hartator 11y ago
I don't get if you are sarcastic or not.
notacoward 11y ago
The issue is not writing such software in some other language. The issue is rewriting such software in some other language. That's a very very large pile of functionality to implement all over again. In the process new bugs will be introduced, including new security bugs. While it's easy enough to write a toy system in some other language and get a paper published, a more fruitful approach for making a real world system secure is to do so incrementally. Look at the L4 family of microkernels for an example.
Spivak 11y ago
What do you consider to be a safer language? It seems like in most 'safe' languages you are relying on the language implementer to provide security and the compiler to basically catch the same mistakes that the static analysis tools do. You could consider this a variant of, "don't roll your own" but when a vulnerability is discovered it might be out of your control until the next release.
DGAP 11y ago
It seems somewhat absurd to blame the existence of bugs and zero day vulnerabilities on one language, especially when that language is one of the best supported and most powerful. Unless you can figure out a way to remove humans from both the creation and use of software, I anticipate we'll have issues like these for the foreseeable future. Of course, HN commenters like you probably think if we all switched to Go or Swift there'd never be any bugs ever again...
wepple 11y ago
You may have a point there, but what are you suggesting we do about making progress on this?

LukeShu 11y ago

http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/heartbleed-in-rust http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/heartbleed-in-rust I tried writing my own commentary to go with the link, but I decided that it would just be a bad paraphrasing of tedunangst's writing.

hartator 11y ago

I don't get if you are sarcastic or not.

notacoward 11y ago

The issue is not writing such software in some other language. The issue is rewriting such software in some other language. That's a very very large pile of functionality to implement all over again. In the process new bugs will be introduced, including new security bugs. While it's easy enough to write a toy system in some other language and get a paper published, a more fruitful approach for making a real world system secure is to do so incrementally. Look at the L4 family of microkernels for an example.

Spivak 11y ago

What do you consider to be a safer language? It seems like in most 'safe' languages you are relying on the language implementer to provide security and the compiler to basically catch the same mistakes that the static analysis tools do. You could consider this a variant of, "don't roll your own" but when a vulnerability is discovered it might be out of your control until the next release.

DGAP 11y ago

It seems somewhat absurd to blame the existence of bugs and zero day vulnerabilities on one language, especially when that language is one of the best supported and most powerful. Unless you can figure out a way to remove humans from both the creation and use of software, I anticipate we'll have issues like these for the foreseeable future. Of course, HN commenters like you probably think if we all switched to Go or Swift there'd never be any bugs ever again...

wepple 11y ago

You may have a point there, but what are you suggesting we do about making progress on this?