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Why written in C? If C is just wrapper over asm Then emit it from any other lang
by hardware2win 4y ago
Why written in C?
If C is just wrapper over asm
Then emit it from any other lang
- dahfizz 4y agoBecause, as the article states, the OS interface is C. In order to do anything useful at all in your code, you need to call through the C API of your operating system. To replace this, you would need another compiled language. It can't be "any other lang" - it needs to be something compiled down to machine code that can be directly executed on your CPU. So you could write a new OS that presents an interface in Rust, or Zig, but never WASM.
- pjmlp 4y agoIBM and Unisys mainframes and microcomputers beg to differ, with their language environments.
- lolinder 4y agoI don't think it has to be C, but it can't be any arbitrary language. It has to compile to machine code, and I wouldn't want to implement a VM in a garbage collected language because you need more fine-grained control over memory then those can provide. That last requirement rules out most languages with any significant community besides C/C++, Rust, Zig, and a few other even lower profile C replacements.