3 ms·

Can we name any programmers who are actually capable of a safe implementation using an unsafe language? DJB failed, Knuth's code has bugs, how can I expect you

• dependenttypes 6y ago
  I am not talking about safe implementations of programs but rather safe implementations of languages. A (kind of bad example because it does not catch everything) is the address sanitiser that clang and gcc have.
• peterwwillis 6y ago
  That's a good point, but on the other hand, who wrote the languages? Is it possible for a human to write a language which another human can use and create no bugs? In either case - unsafe language and safe implementation, safe language and unsafe implementation - there is the possibility for bugs, and definitely security ones. Just because you can't cause integer overflow doesn't mean you can't exfiltrate petabytes of data. I think the major security consideration should be a comprehensive review of the entire system. Regardless of the language or implementation, a regular architectural and non-functional review of all the components in a systematic way is going to provide more security gains than any other single thing. Maybe we should be focusing less on the tools we use and more on improving that workflow.