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You're missing high-level languages such as Modula-2 or Free Pascal that are safe-by-default while being close to the machine. They compile faster. They're easi

You're missing high-level languages such as Modula-2 or Free Pascal that are safe-by-default while being close to the machine. They compile faster. They're easier to analyze. Someone who understands C could easily port it to one of these languages or even write a translator that converts them to C for easy integration of incrementally-rewritten pieces of the OS. They don't because they like C for non-technical reasons or want to do one piece of tooling work over another. Another you might find interesting in alternate history where C programmers adopt better tech is Cyclone that tried to stick to C as much as possible. Rust's safety scheme took a lot of inspiration from Cyclone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_(programming_language) http://trevorjim.com/unfrozen-cyclone/ http://trevorjim.com/unfrozen-cyclone/ " There are excellent model checkers out there for C, and quite a few proof assistants are gaining the ability to check proofs on C code directly" I agree. Further, just using Design-by-Contract with property-based and fuzz testing on those contracts would improve things by itself. There was also an academic who applied Frama-C to one of their smallest, battle-tested components in I think a string library. Although no coding flaw found, the exercise did show the documentation was incorrect. Gotta wonder what benefit might happen for less obvious stuff than string operations.

nanolith 9y ago
Cyclone is an interesting example. Something that is backward-compatible with C and does not incur significant compile-time overhead, like C++ does, is a potential alternative. Unfortunately, Cyclone was abandoned. It only has support for 32-bit architectures, and it is not being actively maintained. One of the biggest reasons why C is so popular is that it works on practically every platform, even those that Cyclone, Modula-2, and Free Pascal do not. Of course, if OpenBSD eliminates support for a bunch of the platforms it currently supports, such alternative languages become viable. However, the OpenBSD team purposefully maintains these platforms because they expose errors that would otherwise be missed by a scaled-down release. Software errors missed in x86_64 or x86 may be picked up in MIPS or SPARC because of endianness. An alternative that I think is more tenable is a language that compiles to C. Such a language can piggy-back off of C's incredible market penetration while adding safety features. Barring some extensions to Cyclone, most of Cyclone's features, for instance, could be implemented as a source-source compiler that targets ANSI C99 or ANSI C11.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  That's actually what I said here in my more thorough comment below plus some of other replies: https://lobste.rs/s/4cf21p/re_integrating_safe_languages_into#c_4ch7ug https://lobste.rs/s/4cf21p/re_integrating_safe_languages_int... Ill be replying to followups on that later tonight or in the morning. I totally agree it should be default. I'll go further to say it should have C datatypes/sizes, calling convention, FFI with little to no annotations required, and compile to C. Each check should be removable per midule with a compiler option, pragma per module, or equivalent keyword/operator marked unsafe . It also needs inline ASM. For its own advantages, add macros, safe linking, and a REPL with incremental compilation. That by itself would be better and faster to develop than with C with seemless integration with legacy codebases. Side benefit like in my Brute-Force Assurance method would be it benefiting from all tooling C ecosystem has to offer esp static analysis and certifying compiler. What you think on that?

nanolith 9y ago

Cyclone is an interesting example. Something that is backward-compatible with C and does not incur significant compile-time overhead, like C++ does, is a potential alternative. Unfortunately, Cyclone was abandoned. It only has support for 32-bit architectures, and it is not being actively maintained. One of the biggest reasons why C is so popular is that it works on practically every platform, even those that Cyclone, Modula-2, and Free Pascal do not. Of course, if OpenBSD eliminates support for a bunch of the platforms it currently supports, such alternative languages become viable. However, the OpenBSD team purposefully maintains these platforms because they expose errors that would otherwise be missed by a scaled-down release. Software errors missed in x86_64 or x86 may be picked up in MIPS or SPARC because of endianness. An alternative that I think is more tenable is a language that compiles to C. Such a language can piggy-back off of C's incredible market penetration while adding safety features. Barring some extensions to Cyclone, most of Cyclone's features, for instance, could be implemented as a source-source compiler that targets ANSI C99 or ANSI C11.

nickpsecurity 9y ago
That's actually what I said here in my more thorough comment below plus some of other replies: https://lobste.rs/s/4cf21p/re_integrating_safe_languages_into#c_4ch7ug https://lobste.rs/s/4cf21p/re_integrating_safe_languages_int... Ill be replying to followups on that later tonight or in the morning. I totally agree it should be default. I'll go further to say it should have C datatypes/sizes, calling convention, FFI with little to no annotations required, and compile to C. Each check should be removable per midule with a compiler option, pragma per module, or equivalent keyword/operator marked unsafe . It also needs inline ASM. For its own advantages, add macros, safe linking, and a REPL with incremental compilation. That by itself would be better and faster to develop than with C with seemless integration with legacy codebases. Side benefit like in my Brute-Force Assurance method would be it benefiting from all tooling C ecosystem has to offer esp static analysis and certifying compiler. What you think on that?