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Serious question: how does a project adopting a "safe" language benefit the company that's pushing it or give them more control? For example, if I write my web
by bscphil 6y ago
Serious question: how does a project adopting a "safe" language benefit the company that's pushing it or give them more control? For example, if I write my web server in Go, does that benefit Google in any meaningful way? How?
Likewise, I usually think of Mozilla as one of the primary promoters of safe languages (specifically, Rust). Do you think they benefit in some illicit way if someone chooses to use Rust?
I read your linked post, but, without reading the whole thread, I'm not sure how it doesn't amount to saying that security bugs are, on net, a good thing.
To be clear, I have my own criticisms of these newer languages that center on their corporate-driven development (e.g. they're generally designed around the belief that the developer should also be the final packager of the software or should at least determine what the final binary looks like), but their additional security is not something that I had thought to criticize as such.
- userbinator 6y agoIt's not about a single project or even many --- but the gradual normalisation/acceptance of "safe languages" (and likewise, the ostracising of "unsafe languages") that is the main concern. A "creeping absolutism", in other words. Do I want a browser that's free of remotely exploitable vulnerabilities? Yes. Do I want a "device" that I can't take control of, despite the fact that I bought it? Do I want unbreakable DRM? No. Hell no. The problem is that those who work on the latter will see the former, and adopt the same technologies to enslave instead of empower. Ultimately it's a balance of power. Neither total lawlessness nor total authoritarianism ("zero crime", as some like to call it), to use a real-world analogy.