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When you're writing systems software you need systems software engineers and most of them are far more competent in C/C++ than, say, Rust, Ada, Go, etc. We cho

When you're writing systems software you need systems software engineers and most of them are far more competent in C/C++ than, say, Rust, Ada, Go, etc. We choose C/C++ because it's what we know and what our colleagues know, but I think a lot of us wish there was a better alternative.

jandrewrogers 6y ago
Not to take away anything from your post, but Go is not a systems language. No language with a mandatory garbage collector can make that claim since it makes some systems code effectively impossible to implement.
- 01100011 6y ago
  I agree, but some people don't. When I interviewed at Google a couple years ago, they were rewriting the Fuchsia network stack in Rust. It was currently written in Go. My jaw about hit the floor when I heard that. I'm guessing they realized it was a mistake, but then again maybe the Go version was just a temporary placeholder. IDK, didn't get the job.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Better hold your jaw with both hands while reading this, https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/foundry/usb-armory https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/foundry/usb-armory
    - 01100011 6y ago
      Uh, if you think that's bad, I once worked at a company that made communications gear for first responders and the military. Most of their stack was written in Python 2. I'm not talking UI, I'm talking systems software level stuff. Python tied together with dbus on top of a shake-n-bake Yocto distro that was out of date. People's lives depended on that tower of crap.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        Why should it be bad? One less device running C, with firmware written in a type safe language that takes bounds checking seriously. As for Python, I recommend you to have a look at IEEE magazine.
  - jandrewrogers 6y ago
    Rust is an entirely adequate systems language for most purposes. I think it could probably replace C for almost all purposes except in cases where extreme portability is required, which C excels at. C++ is really only the answer if you need extreme performance and/or expressiveness out of a systems language. Some code, like database engines, really benefits from that.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  That is the agenda usually pushed by anti-GC crowd, others think differently. https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/foundry/usb-armory https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/foundry/usb-armory https://www.astrobe.com/ https://www.astrobe.com/ https://dlang.org/ https://dlang.org/ https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/
  - jandrewrogers 6y ago
    It isn’t an “anti-GC crowd”, it is based in pretty solid theoretical computer science with large amounts of empirical evidence behind it. GC-based environments are incompatible with schedule-based safety, optimization, etc which are major optimizations and design elements in modern systems. No one has ever demonstrated a systems architecture that can outperform a state-of-the-art schedule-optimized design. This result is expected in theory. There are several optimality theorems, treated as a soft limit, that only hold true if you don’t control the schedule. The requirements of GCs guarantee you don’t control the schedule. State-of-the-art system designs, in non-GC environments, aren’t limited by those theorems and frankly run circles around GC-based systems. I work with a lot of companies that run nothing but managed languages and even they don’t believe that produces an optimal system, just an adequate one for non-intensive use cases. And that is a legitimate position. You clearly are deeply invested in the superiority of GCs for all use cases. That’s fine. I make a lot of money replacing them with empirically much higher performance systems. There isn’t a lot of computer science to support the pro-GC position if performance is the objective. And to be clear, the loss of performance is integer factor, not something that can be trivially dismissed.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      And I make money replacing C++ systems with ones written in AOT/JIT managed languages, with different kinds of automatic memory management. The last time I did full stack C++ development was in 2006, nowadays its use is constrained to a couple of unavoidable native libraries, or GPGPU shaders. Not everything can be proved in practice when management prefers to give money to the ones that sabotage projects like Windows Dev team has done to Longhorn and Midori efforts. Are you aware that for quite some time any of your Bing searches using Asian servers were powered by Midori? Thankfully this is a problem that eventually will get fixed by generational evolution, pity I won't be around to fully witness it.

jandrewrogers 6y ago

Not to take away anything from your post, but Go is not a systems language. No language with a mandatory garbage collector can make that claim since it makes some systems code effectively impossible to implement.

01100011 6y ago
I agree, but some people don't. When I interviewed at Google a couple years ago, they were rewriting the Fuchsia network stack in Rust. It was currently written in Go. My jaw about hit the floor when I heard that. I'm guessing they realized it was a mistake, but then again maybe the Go version was just a temporary placeholder. IDK, didn't get the job.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Better hold your jaw with both hands while reading this, https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/foundry/usb-armory https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/foundry/usb-armory
  - 01100011 6y ago
    Uh, if you think that's bad, I once worked at a company that made communications gear for first responders and the military. Most of their stack was written in Python 2. I'm not talking UI, I'm talking systems software level stuff. Python tied together with dbus on top of a shake-n-bake Yocto distro that was out of date. People's lives depended on that tower of crap.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Why should it be bad? One less device running C, with firmware written in a type safe language that takes bounds checking seriously. As for Python, I recommend you to have a look at IEEE magazine.
- jandrewrogers 6y ago
  Rust is an entirely adequate systems language for most purposes. I think it could probably replace C for almost all purposes except in cases where extreme portability is required, which C excels at. C++ is really only the answer if you need extreme performance and/or expressiveness out of a systems language. Some code, like database engines, really benefits from that.
pjmlp 6y ago
That is the agenda usually pushed by anti-GC crowd, others think differently. https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/foundry/usb-armory https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/foundry/usb-armory https://www.astrobe.com/ https://www.astrobe.com/ https://dlang.org/ https://dlang.org/ https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/
- jandrewrogers 6y ago
  It isn’t an “anti-GC crowd”, it is based in pretty solid theoretical computer science with large amounts of empirical evidence behind it. GC-based environments are incompatible with schedule-based safety, optimization, etc which are major optimizations and design elements in modern systems. No one has ever demonstrated a systems architecture that can outperform a state-of-the-art schedule-optimized design. This result is expected in theory. There are several optimality theorems, treated as a soft limit, that only hold true if you don’t control the schedule. The requirements of GCs guarantee you don’t control the schedule. State-of-the-art system designs, in non-GC environments, aren’t limited by those theorems and frankly run circles around GC-based systems. I work with a lot of companies that run nothing but managed languages and even they don’t believe that produces an optimal system, just an adequate one for non-intensive use cases. And that is a legitimate position. You clearly are deeply invested in the superiority of GCs for all use cases. That’s fine. I make a lot of money replacing them with empirically much higher performance systems. There isn’t a lot of computer science to support the pro-GC position if performance is the objective. And to be clear, the loss of performance is integer factor, not something that can be trivially dismissed.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    And I make money replacing C++ systems with ones written in AOT/JIT managed languages, with different kinds of automatic memory management. The last time I did full stack C++ development was in 2006, nowadays its use is constrained to a couple of unavoidable native libraries, or GPGPU shaders. Not everything can be proved in practice when management prefers to give money to the ones that sabotage projects like Windows Dev team has done to Longhorn and Midori efforts. Are you aware that for quite some time any of your Bing searches using Asian servers were powered by Midori? Thankfully this is a problem that eventually will get fixed by generational evolution, pity I won't be around to fully witness it.