4 ms·

Why does an OS have a “main” language?

• vbezhenar 9y ago
  If you know this language, you can change any part of OS. I think that's a valuable asset. For example if you're using OpenBSD and know C, you can hack anything from kernel to smtp daemon. If you're OS is written with 10 languages, it's much harder to learn them all.
  • adrianmonk 9y ago
    That's a good argument for keeping the set of languages limited. But it doesn't necessarily have to be just one.
    • ibotty 9y ago
      It never is. Even ancient unix had shell and (maybe more to your point) yacc. Yacc still generates C files, but that's more of an implementation detail. The C _interop_ is key.
      • pjmlp 9y ago
        > The C _interop_ is key. On UNIX compatible OSes, others not so much.
        • ibotty 9y ago
          Well, of course! I was talking about why yacc is a second language for (early and contemporary) unix. Its C interop for (early and contemporary) unix is what I was stressing.
          • pjmlp 9y ago
            Ah ok, sorry for being pedantic. You are fully right.
• tonyg 9y ago
  There's such a strong connection between the idea of "programming language runtime" and "operating system" (resource management, I/O management, task scheduling, package management, upgrade management, lifecycle management, version control, configuration management, user interface, etc.) that it makes sense both to - think of a PL as an OS (Smalltalk, Erlang, JVM) - think of an OS as a PL The latter leads to the idea that there might be a "main language" for an OS in the same way there's a "main language" for Smalltalk, Erlang, and JVM runtimes (Smalltalk, Erlang, and Java, respectively), and "auxiliary languages" that fit into the same runtimes (Java/Self/etc, Elixir/LFE/etc, and Scala/Clojure/Kotlin/etc, respectively).