3 ms·

There's been a number of reports released by the government that recommend adopting memory safe languages as opposed to C/C++. The White House put out a memo [0

There's been a number of reports released by the government that recommend adopting memory safe languages as opposed to C/C++. The White House put out a memo [0] for example, and NIST has this page [1]. Since there are no other systems languages with widespread developer mindshare, some people see these as primarily recommending Rust. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/oncd/briefing-room/2024/02/26/memory-safety-statements-of-support/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/oncd/briefing-room/2024/02/26/mem... [1] https://www.nist.gov/itl/ssd/software-quality-group/safer-languages https://www.nist.gov/itl/ssd/software-quality-group/safer-la...

jimbob45 2y ago
What about MISRA C and C++ with static analysis tools? Also all GC languages would pretty easily solve the problem including Java and C#.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  It's perfectly possible to write the crowdstrike issue in C/C++ code that will pass any MISRA checker, because MISRA checkers are unable to verify conformance with the standard. It basically says "don't do this" and leaves it up to the developer to ensure. Static analysis tools (broadly) are not powerful enough to ensure memory safety for nontrivial programs without a high developer burden in the form of annotations or restricted language subsets. GC languages are generally not appropriate for kernel level systems programming like crowdstrike was doing. Java has some history in this space, but generally without niceties like garbage collection that typical developers are used to.
echelon 2y ago
> some people see these as primarily recommending Rust. That's not the reason. The DoD really is focused on Rust [1, 2]. [1] https://www.darpa.mil/program/translating-all-c-to-rust https://www.darpa.mil/program/translating-all-c-to-rust [2] https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2024-07-31a https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2024-07-31a
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  The federal government is a lot bigger than even the DoD, and the other agencies (e.g. NIST as linked above) have been very careful to make sure they aren't only recommending Rust, even if it's clearly a major alternative.

jimbob45 2y ago

What about MISRA C and C++ with static analysis tools? Also all GC languages would pretty easily solve the problem including Java and C#.

AlotOfReading 2y ago
It's perfectly possible to write the crowdstrike issue in C/C++ code that will pass any MISRA checker, because MISRA checkers are unable to verify conformance with the standard. It basically says "don't do this" and leaves it up to the developer to ensure. Static analysis tools (broadly) are not powerful enough to ensure memory safety for nontrivial programs without a high developer burden in the form of annotations or restricted language subsets. GC languages are generally not appropriate for kernel level systems programming like crowdstrike was doing. Java has some history in this space, but generally without niceties like garbage collection that typical developers are used to.

echelon 2y ago

> some people see these as primarily recommending Rust. That's not the reason. The DoD really is focused on Rust [1, 2]. [1] https://www.darpa.mil/program/translating-all-c-to-rust https://www.darpa.mil/program/translating-all-c-to-rust [2] https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2024-07-31a https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2024-07-31a

AlotOfReading 2y ago
The federal government is a lot bigger than even the DoD, and the other agencies (e.g. NIST as linked above) have been very careful to make sure they aren't only recommending Rust, even if it's clearly a major alternative.