3 ms·

Unfortunately, still in 2023, one's OS is still largely dependent upon C (and assembly for certain optimizations). Rust is dipping it's toe into the OS world y

• lmm 3y ago
  > Unfortunately, still in 2023, one's OS is still largely dependent upon C (and assembly for certain optimizations). We mostly don't actually use the OS though. We write code that gets deployed on some managed cloud system, and to the extent that there's anything in between (a unix process, kernel and virtual machine to run the code) we probably cargo cult it and don't worry about the details unless it breaks. Building unikernels (which is increasingly practical, with OCaml leading the way but other options available) would sidestep many of those layers of junk. ("Serverless" is another way to achieve the same thing, and may well be the one to succeed; even if serverless systems don't currently use unikernels, they could be transparently upgraded to them in the future, if they're strict enough about the interfaces they offer at the moment).