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People say this all the time, and maybe it's just my naivete, but I just don't understand why at least something like C++ is not an option in embedded spaces. S

People say this all the time, and maybe it's just my naivete, but I just don't understand why at least something like C++ is not an option in embedded spaces. Sure you might need to avoid operator new() and exceptions or whatever, but you still have so much more power than in plain C even with half the language removed, and avoid so many of the C pitfalls just by that. I know people kept telling me you "need" C for a kernel... and I just ignored them and wrote drivers and even a basic from-scratch kernel in C++, and they all worked just fine, and with so much less pain than C. And honestly, if C++ somehow (I don't understand how, but let's say somehow) has too much overhead... why would another language compiled to C be any better? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Animats 5y ago
You can use C++ on even an Arduino. In fact, the Arduino development development is full C++. You just have to stick to the non-Clib features.
tluyben2 5y ago
C++ is no issue but, to make very small binaries packed with the features we need, you need a lot of fiddling and the end it does not look like c++. Not to mention that most embedded devs (at least in Asian, Africa and eu embedded corps which make deployments of millions of mcu's, not home arduino users: there might be more of those) work mostly with C. I think most are waiting to skip a revolution to something like Rust but that does not fit yet. So this solution gives at least some handles to add verification. That said, there are more of these projects. I think there is an F* project too. > why would another language compiled to C be any better? It just doesn't make sense to me. It seems that the formalization in the article allows for very low level operation which you would use in C while not writing C. As said, sure you can do that in C++ but then you gain little or nothing. I have not tried this, only posted it because I would like for something robust like it to exist. Now we use Coq (or more recent idris) to write things and hand translate them to mcu asm/c.

Animats 5y ago

You can use C++ on even an Arduino. In fact, the Arduino development development is full C++. You just have to stick to the non-Clib features.

tluyben2 5y ago

C++ is no issue but, to make very small binaries packed with the features we need, you need a lot of fiddling and the end it does not look like c++. Not to mention that most embedded devs (at least in Asian, Africa and eu embedded corps which make deployments of millions of mcu's, not home arduino users: there might be more of those) work mostly with C. I think most are waiting to skip a revolution to something like Rust but that does not fit yet. So this solution gives at least some handles to add verification. That said, there are more of these projects. I think there is an F* project too. > why would another language compiled to C be any better? It just doesn't make sense to me. It seems that the formalization in the article allows for very low level operation which you would use in C while not writing C. As said, sure you can do that in C++ but then you gain little or nothing. I have not tried this, only posted it because I would like for something robust like it to exist. Now we use Coq (or more recent idris) to write things and hand translate them to mcu asm/c.